Original subtitles

Whatever was going on could not be legal or good.

This can't be real.

We were just shocked.

If it wasn't for her, he's alive today.

PROSECUTOR: She used Conrad as a pawn

in her sick game of life and death.

If you want the truth,

you have to let all the evidence come forth.

LAWYER: This case, it's not about the defendant's race...

I have nothing to hide.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS, CONCLUDES) ♪

Female Reporter: Of the four people in the house that night,

you're the only one to actually tell your story.

When you hear all the rumors and speculations and allegations,

what would you like to say?

Nupur Talwar: Sonia, we ate dinner as a family,

and we went to sleep.

I mean, just like any family, like any other household.

I mean, what is there to say about this?

All I can say is that...

I have faith in the legal system.

And I hope justice is done.

We were such a happy family, Sonia.

I mean, I used to always think I must have done something

really nice in my last life to have such a wonderful family.

News anchor: Public and media memory is fickle.

Just a year back, the nation was shocked in hearing

the tragic news of a young girl, Aarushi, murdered in Noida.

A year later, everyone has moved on

and Aarushi remains just a faded memory.

The case, with its botched up management and police bungling.

First, the father was arrested.

The CBI quickly reversed the decision and released him.

But even now, what exactly is happening on this case?

Nupur: Everything reminds me of Aarushi,

everything reminds me of having lost Aarushi.

It's a big void which-- which has really kind of,

you know, it's made us so sad and there's so much pain.

We see her around everywhere

and we think about her all the time.

There've been dreams where she's grown up

and I'm still living in that loss having lost

the most precious thing in my life.

Dinesh Talwar: It has shaken my faith

and there have been moments

when there have been a lot of dark clouds.

And at times there's been anger,

at times it's been complete despondency.

The despondency that just because

a wrong perception's been created,

if somebody doesn't have tears then it's-- I mean,

what do you do?

I'm pretty private in my grief, I...

probably don't share so much of it.

S. Javeed Ahmad: Because this was such an important case,

it became necessary to set up a fresh team.

We were very clear that we wanted to, uh, do away with

all the, uh, conclusions that had been drawn.

We-- we wanted to go with a clean slate

and get to the truth.

Kaul Sir was extremely professional.

He had a very good understanding of

how criminal investigation needs to be done,

but he was slightly stubborn.

He was not someone who would take a shortcut just to,

you know, reach a conclusion.

He had only one agenda which was to reach the truth.

It was obvious that whatever has happened

has happened within the four walls of that flat.

Therefore, the first thing that we did when we took over this case

was spend almost 24 hours in the flat.

Just trying to absorb the surroundings

and getting used to that little space

where all the action had happened.

And try to visualize

everything that could have happened.

As we investigated the case, it became more and more clear

that whatever has happened

has happened in the knowledge of the parents.

But in this case. there's no one clincher.

If there had been one big golden bullet kind of clincher

then it would not have been the mystery that it has become.

When we were looking at the forensic evidence

we were also looking at the post-mortem report

and we were intrigued

by the shape and size of the injury to both the deceased.

One to the forehead, that is of Aarushi,

and one to the back of the head in the case of Hemraj,

with the top being more wide than the lower part of the injury.

That particular nature of injury had to be matched

with whatever weapon could have been used.

Looking at possible weapons,

we discovered in the photographs taken

that there were some golf clubs lying in the room of the servant.

Then it just struck that maybe

the wedge of the golf club

matches with the shape of the injury.

And we found that, yes, the 5-iron was exactly of the same dimension.

Rebecca John: What was originally just whispers

and hushed tones

became more and more pronounced.

They were in this horrible position

where they were trying to find out

who the killer was, or who-- who their daughter's killer was.

And yet defending themselves,

that, "We haven't done it and none of this is true."

I believe the second team

perhaps had a problem with Nupur's personality.

One of the officers of the CBI did tell me,

"What is with this woman, why-- why don't you reign her in?

Because whenever we ask her a question she has, uh,

she's almost hostile when she responds."

I can imagine her telling an investigator,

"I never committed this crime,

and I don't see why you're asking me this question."

Ajay Chadha: The first time I had interaction

with Kaul was when I received a mail from Kaul

asking me to join the investigation and come to the CBI office.

I realized this person had created a Gmail account.

and not using the CBI official e-mail ID to communicate.

It was from Hemraj.

He came across as a nice gentleman initially,

very polite, very soft spoken.

He asked me a few general questions,

then he started

trying to convince me that,

uh, it's the parents who have done it.

I said, "I'm a million percent sure

that it's not the parents and it's someone else.

Why don't you look towards that angle?"

Then he started leaning towards,

"What's your relationship with Nupur?"

And I said, "Rajesh and I have grown up together.

We're very close."

And after this incident happened,

and she confided in me

and I was also shocked and I tried to help.

He started threatening me,

supposing there's anything more in that relationship.

I said, "No there's nothing. We're just pure friends."

He said, "Suppose I go tell your wife about it."

So I said, "First of all,

this has nothing to do with the case.

And secondly, I don't care because my wife knows me.

What my relationship with Nupur is,

you are going and saying it to my wife

is not going to... do anything.

So you want to go ahead? Go ahead.

So he was making veiled threats.

And that's the time I realized how Kaul is.

Very smooth talker,

and then he'll manipulate things.

That's the way he worked.

What the second team did was essentially

reinforce what Gudarshan Singh did

when Rajesh was arrested.

What started as a fairy tale actually ended as a fairy tale.

And the senior officers of the CBI who sat on the case

were of the opinion that since there wasn't enough material to prosecute anyone,

the case should be closed.

So while they formally asked the court to close the case,

the entire narrative

in that report was so damaging

that it was actually a charge sheet masquerading as a closure report.

Which was solely meant to create prejudice.

I think the magistrate was left with little choice

but to summon, uh, Nupur and Rajesh.

We concluded that this is a case of insufficient evidence.

We never said that there was no evidence.

Meaning that while we do suspect that it is the parents,

uh, we don't have enough to implicate them.

But for the court it was official, so they went ahead.

It was really very saddening

that they had no physical evidence

and that obviously cast a shadow on the entire, uh, thing.

So they went through

brain mapping and lie detector tests.

And they went through the narco also.

So six tests, all of them showed they were innocent.

They are not involved.

Rajat Kain: For the first time, CBI opens up all the cards,

where they actually take excerpts from the narco analysis test.

The CBI's ploy here was to call Talwars' bluff.

It's been very persistent and consistent argument from the Talwars' side,

that they'd been given a clean sheet

in all the three scientific tests:

polygraphy, narco, and brain mapping.

Whereas the CBI in the contrast evidence, says no...

they were never given a clean sheet.

But, uh, we never reported on those narco reports

because they were never admitted in the court of law.

This is the twice-- second time I'm going through this.

This is the kind of investigation, this is the kind of people

that we have in our investigation.

They don't-- they don't know anything.

In fact, this is-- this is what they do to innocent people?

Two and a half years, all you do is--

We go through every single damn thing.

I've opened my mind to them!

Have they realized that thing?

I've opened my mind to them,

I've-- I've got my narco done,

I got lie detector done, five times.

Their job is to find the evidence.

They don't find the evidence, how do they put an allegation?

I've tolerated, I've tolerated,

I've tolerated, I've tolerated.

I have tolerated for so many,

two years I have said nothing.

I did everything I possibly could.

I mean, we cooperated with them...

(talking fades)

Rebecca: There was no way they were going to accept

those allegations without protest.

So they filed a protest petition to the closure report

essentially asking

to investigate the case further

so as to find out who actually killed their daughter.

Which parent wouldn't do that?

There was someone else accused and that is something

which the Talwars would never have accepted.

Considering they were very strong in their opinion about...

uh, "It's the outsiders, it's the servant."

Not them, they've been framed.

They've been framed from day one.

Javeed: The way they conducted themselves and the way

they tried to run down the prosecution

and make very personalized remarks,

it gave me a feeling that something wrong had been done by them.

And they were ready to stoop to whatever levels

to somehow, uh, you know, get away.

It was another shock when after

the summoning order came for Rajesh and Nupur

and the documents which were attached to the closure report

were given to the family,

we found that there was a document

which said that the DNA of Hemraj

was there on the pillow

of Krishna which was recovered from Krishna's room.

This report was dated November 6th, 2008,

after the-- they had been released on bail

but before this investigation was completed.

And I think they missed this piece of information.

This was a huge thing

and when we found this report

we put this report in the high court.

That's when they said that,

"Oh, actually there was a mistake.

There's been a difference in the labeling."

The pillow which was in Hemraj's room,

that was found to have the DNA of Hemraj.

And the one which was found from Krishna's room

did not have any DNA.

So this is how they suddenly

changed the report.

As far as that pillow story is concerned,

the supreme court is on record

having accepted the version of the CBI.

I don't think anything more can be said on that.

If you want the truth,

you have to let all the evidence come forth.

And that's all we-- we ask for.

Where is the investigation against the servants

after the second team took over?

I don't see anything, we were hoping that there would be.

There is none.

Javeed: We didn't want to be biased

either in favor of the servants or against the parents,

or anyone for that matter.

But the fact that those servants had been found

at their places of normal stay

right after the incident,

The fact that one of the masters of the servants, Mr. Durrani,

he very categorically said that their servant

had driven them to the station

and had come back at around midnight.

So, uh, there were many small pieces of facts

which were uncontestable

and they all went against,

uh, the hypothesis that it was the servants who had done it.

You see, it would have been the easiest thing to do

to frame the servants and finish with the matter.

The servants were comparatively weak people,

people who did not have much of a voice.

They were also Nepalese citizens,

so no feathers would have been ruffled.

Female reporter: So what has just happened-- Rajesh Talwar has been hit

by someone just outside the Ghaziabad court.

Currently, we do not have any information on who this person was

or where he came from.

Rebecca: I think the manner in which

this whole case was investigated

and the obscene press coverage of this case,

created this kind of hydraulic pressure,

which made it very, very difficult to put a word of sense through.

All we wanted was justice for our child,

and this is what has been given to us.

Please try to understand that.

She was a precious child for us.

She was our only child and we wanted justice for her

because somebody had done this to her.

We can't live without her...

(talking fades)

I've got Dr. Nupur Talwar, Dr. Rajesh Talwar,

and their brother, Dr. Dinesh Talwar,

with us for this special interview.

I want to start with you, Dr. Talwar.

I've had absolutely enough.

I cannot tolerate this anymore.

This is not the way to treat a father.

There is absolutely no doubt

that they participated in the media trials.

Of course they--

they were-- they were providing information,

they were providing access,

they were providing every sort of material,

to certain sections of the media

who had openly declared their support to Talwars.

Male reporter: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar's trial

for the murder of their child, Aarushi,

and the domestic help, Hemraj,

has begun in the CBI special courtroom in Ghaziabad.

Remember, the Talwars have been accused

of murder and destruction of evidence in the crime from 2008.

Nupur: It was a difficult time for us and for my parents

it was the most devastating thing that could have happened.

I lost my daughter and they lost their granddaughter.

Coming to that court, being there with me the whole day.

People would talk about Aarushi, they would talk about us.

And it was the most upsetting part for us.

When a particular case gets this kind of attention,

and when your opponent is going after you viciously in this manner,

I'm afraid it does affect the quality of justice.

And the court seemed less inclined to look

whether somebody is being subjected to a prosecution

which is more of a witch-hunt.

And more inclined to accept the official version.

Rajesh and Nupur said they were sleeping that night.

Now what proof can two people who are sleeping

give that they are innocent?

That they are not involved in this crime?

That is something which Talwars reason

saying there may have been a power cut.

Or that was a usual behavior of the router.

But CBI argued there was no power cut.

There were similar behavior the next day as well.

But Talwars were not able to explain

as to how the router could be switched on and off,

and why it's important is because router was in Aarushi's room.

Javeed: Within two minutes of the key being thrown down,

Bharti Mandal comes up and within those two minutes,

the lady of the house, that is Nupur Talwar,

discovers that her child has been killed.

Javeed: It almost looked calculated, maybe even rehearsed.

And in the absence of material evidence,

uh, these circumstances

and these unexplained behavior patterns

were very, you know, were very, very odd.

We could not have ignored them.

Today I wonder why we had the trial at all,

because people kind of already knew what was going to happen.

So where was the need, then, to have a trial?

Because nobody wants to look at the facts

and the evidence of the case.

And so nobody believes whatever we say

because we are just one family, against the almighty CBI.

If you're asked to go into a trial,

in an atmosphere which is so vitiated,

you've lost it even before you've begun.

And that's what happened to them.

Even before they entered court,

the script was written.

And that should not happen to anyone.

Fiza Jha: I've literally grown up with this case.

I was about 12 or 13 when it happened,

and now I'm 22.

And, uh, my memory of her

has become extremely faint.

She'd become like a concept or like an abstraction.

Even her parents

and their entire lives have kind of become caricatures.

Everyone's kind of deconstructed them,

like they were pieces of information in the sense

that there's not really any human qualities left to them anymore.

Satish: She said that, "Yes, I'm gonna have

some very important things to reveal."

Where Hemraj was talking about a threat to his life.

And she also concluded that if the threat is from some outsider,

then definitely he would have shared it

with his, you know, the master.

But rather than doing so,

he goes to a-- to a third person to share about this life threat.

Regarding Krishna making a landline telephone call

on the CBI's landline number,

I mean, this fact came to us a little later

during the course of the investigation.

And trying to find out what was the content of conversation.

I mean it is-- it is impossible,

because unless you have taken a phone of surveillance

you don't get the content of the conversation.

I mean, you have no, uh, technology in the world to, you know, extract

what was the information which he had shared.

And by the time we learned

about this particular information,

the case was already handed over to the CBI.

Female reporter: Aarushi had spent all week planning her birthday party.

Her parents had promised their only child whatever she wanted.

Rajat: It's a case with so many theories floating around,

with so many opinions about it.

There may be certain things which now seems to be fairly straight,

it may take a U-turn.

It's that sort of case.

But first day, it was a very

usual crime story,

as a crime reporter, I'm saying.

Very usual crime story of

this young child murdered by a servant and servant absconding.

You know, in one sentence, if story has to be defined,

that was the story on first day.

But then it becomes something extremely unusual.

So, let me

rewind to the morning of May 16th.

Around quarter past eight,

I got a call that there is a murder in Noida of a young girl.

Given the profile of the girl, and...

the profile of the area,

it becomes an instant headline.

And, uh, as a reporter,

it was an extremely confounding case for us.

When I reached there, I mean, already there were,

apart from the police officers who were there,

there were quite a few journalists

from various TV channels.

And inside the flat,

I don't know, already there were about maybe 50-plus people,

who could be friends, who could be relatives,

who could be neighbors, spoiling the crime scene.

90% of the cases, the ground reality is

that people and curious onlookers come

and make a mess of a scene of crime.

I can hazard a guess that the first incident at the Talwars' residence

was managed and orchestrated.

If I stand to gain, that scene of crime becomes a fish market.

I would take pains to call my neighbors and friends

and acquaintances first,

and the police later.

One of the allegations is that they made the doctor talk to somebody

before the post-mortem.

My phone records are with the CBI.

There is no such phone call which they are talking about.

But I admit I made a phone call

to a doctor who is an acquaintance who was working in Noida,

whether somebody could come and do the post-mortem earlier,

because the body's rotting outside.

That was the only thing which I talked to him about.

There was a-- a distinct call pattern which was

established with the help of

the call detail records of multiple people

that on day one itself,

the Talwars were reaching

the doctor who conducted the autopsy examination.

And there was a link,

and this particular link was retraced multiple times

from morning, maybe 10:00 a.m.

till the afternoon, 1:00 p.m., till the autopsy was conducted.

In this link, Mr. K.K. Gautam also appeared.

There was another doctor who runs an eye clinic in Noida.

There was a call from one of the Talwars to that doctor.

From that doctor, there was a call to K.K. Gautam

and from K.K. Gautam

this call was again coming back to another person

and finally it was landing upon the cellphone number

of the doctor who conducted the post-mortem examination.

It's not true. I have not done any such thing.

And what is happening?

Gautam claims that I was told by somebody that,

"Don't mention rape in the post-mortem."

So insinuation, no proof.

Did it go through to the post-mortem doctor? No.

First of all, it never went through to the post-mortem doctor.

So was the post-mortem influenced?

No.

Where is the connection between K.K. Gautam

and the post-mortem doctor?

So nothing happened,

but even that insinuation is absolutely false.

We had developed a flow chart

and with the time stampings that

at what time the call was

landing from member one in that loop to the member two,

and member two, immediately the next call he makes it to member three.

Member three in that loop makes the next call to member four.

And then a few minutes later member four calls back three,

three calls backs two, two calls back one.

I mean, it is like, you know, a relay race where

you're handing over the baton from one runner to another sprinter.

And suddenly, one of these persons,

I mean, who was there in that loop,

Mr. K.K. Gautam,

he appears on the 17th morning at the Talwars.

He visits the scene of crime

and he says that in Hemraj's room,

there are multiple impression marks on the mattress.

And it is completely rubbish because

on day one, we had already searched that room

and we had in fact pulled out the mattress,

so how could he get those impression marks on the mattress?

It is completely, I think, his figment of imagination.

Dinesh: Mr. K.K. Gautam, he said "I want to see around."

I said, "Fine, you're-- you're welcome to see around."

So, we went to Aarushi's room and Hemraj's room,

so that's how it happened.

And then while we were there,

it just occurred to me,

hey, from the day before,

we had been asking for the roof door to be opened.

So I asked him. I said "Can you help in this?"

I also saw the police guy coming up.

And then we followed this guy up the stairs,

and then he broke the lock.

At that time, we did not know it was Hemraj.

His body was swollen, the face was swollen.

It was covered with blood so it was not an easy thing to recognize.

R.K. Saini: K.K. Gautam is not manager. K.K. Gautam was used

to get this door open for the recovery of body of Hemraj.

Dinesh: I talked to Nupur very frankly.

I said, "Look, should we go to the CBI?"

Because I was told CBI, uh,

you know is very-- it persists very hard,

so I said, "We don't have anything to hide.

"I mean, as far as I know, we have nothing to hide,

so I'm asking you also."

She said, "Yes, just go ahead."

That's when we asked for the CBI.

Vikram Singh: You ask for ten requests

for the CBI to take over a case,

and not one is accepted.

In this case, even before your written letter

reaches the headquarters,

the CBI team is breathing down your necks

to take hold of the investigations.

And it's not rocket science.

Anybody who can manipulate

the take over of the CBI investigation

had to be somebody who really mattered.

Rajat: The day when Rajesh Talwar was released,

CBI had done a presser

claiming the case has cracked and motive has been found.

And motive was...

Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal.

They were all consuming alcohol,

and they went to Aarushi's room,

somebody tried to harm her.

Then all hell broke loose.

She was killed.

And then Hemraj was also eliminated.

So, I mean, CBI defended that theory of theirs very strongly.

The tool of, of of, of furthering an investigation,

but not the tool to end, or rather conclude the investigation.

So even if we have one narco report

pointing towards servants' involvement.

we have the other narco report

pointing towards,

I won't say culpability, but questioning parents.

Mihir Srivastava: Leave aside anything to do with Aarushi,

the whole question of sex or sexual behavior

of others has been removed from view.

I was meeting

Arun Kumar frequently

and, um, he's always tongue-tied.

But then on one occasion,

he said, and he said this in Hindi

so I will say it in Hindi.

Which is, some things shouldn't be made public

in the interest of society.

And of course there is this

sexual aspect of the whole crime

which has been kind of relegated to peripheries

which is not being talked about.

And which is-- which is quite understandable

in a society like India.

Mihir: If this particular sexual aspect of the crime

explains why the murders happened.

Then to do anything to hide this aspect

merely means you help murderers get away with it.

And when I think about this particular case,

there is this huge grey area

which has been artificially created.

And I-- I'd say it's artificially created

by a concerted conspiracy of silence.

A simple, straight-forward murder case

has been reduced to one of the greatest enigmas of our time.

Man: Yeah, glass.

Tanveer: Got embossed.

-Same to you, sir. -Okay.

Avirook: I could see that there was a very, very big story here,

and it deserved a book.

What it deals with is

our mindset as a country.

What do we like to believe?

What do we choose to believe?

How do we consume media? For instance.

And you put all that in a pot,

and what you have is,

through this one case, the story of India.

Female reporter: The Allahabad high court today acquitted the Talwars,

overturning the guilty verdict

they were given four years earlier.

The judgment states that the circumstances are not conclusive and...

The conclusion that's been come to is something that,

uh, that it is eagerly awaited by the Talwars

and they finally got justice.

You profiled the Talwars extensively,

I know they've been acquitted,

but what have they gone through in the last so many years

and what would they be going through right now?

Rajesh: It was a very difficult day in the sense that we were

pretty tense about the verdict at that time.

And... I read parts of the judgment.

I've not read the entire thing but I have read quite a bit.

And to my mind,

I mean, uh, from whatever I can think,

it's a-- it's a-- it's-- it's--

it's almost like a complete exoneration.

Sir, you were there in the courtroom

when the judgment was pronounced,

what are your first reactions?

I'm very grateful. We are thankful

and we are still grieving we lost our daughter,

but we're thankful for the judgment today.

Suddenly they were-- everybody was so emotional,

There was a lot of hugging and, you know it was--

actually, I found the whole thing so unbelievable.

It was-- it was a miracle.

I mean, I felt that a great miracle had just happened.

But for us it was a very, very emotional moment for us.

Yeah.

Aarushi, and...

we were really missing Aarushi at that time

and thinking of Aarushi at that time.

But that's one tragedy that we can never put past.

Man: Oh! Guys?

Rajesh: After being confined for so long,

to suddenly come into freedom or suddenly step out,

and we could see a lot of people outside.

We could see that this was being--

had attracted a lot of attention.

So it's a little scary...

to face people, to face the world,

to go back into the world, into society.

It's been extremely difficult

over the last nine-and-a-half years since this incident.

The worst suffering any human

can go through is to lose your child,

and that in such a manner.

Losing Aarushi has been

and will always be completely irreparable and inconsolable.

But, uh... there has been, I think,

a transformation inside as a person.

Where we begin to understand what life is about,

what life means. What--

About faith and about being grateful and about God.

We just leave it to God, we just want to--

whatever He does, then it'll be-- it will be for the best.

Whatever happened happened, just let it be now.

We have to move ahead now.

Female reporter: Will we ever know the true case

that had the entire nation sitting up, demanding answers?

Man: We don't have a perpetrator, we have no idea

what actually happened that evening.

Male reporter: Police officers faltered, apologized,

and then faltered again.