The court has not declared the Talwars innocent. It has only given them the benefit of doubt

Either way, it is travesty of justice — if the Talwars are, indeed, the killers, they have gone scot-free. If not, as the court has ruled in the absence of conclusive evidence, they have suffered the ignominy of the highest order in being accused and then charged with their only daughter’s most grisly murder which apparently they had no hand in. They have spent four years in jail and withstood a virtual public and media trial to intense scrutiny. The court may have found them not guilty but the nation and the Talwars — as the dentist couple is infamously referred to — still awaits a closure that may never come as there is no trace or trail of Aarushi’s killers. Such perfect murders often emanate from most imperfect investigations into a killing, something that has dogged the Aarushi case from Day one with the police losing crucial evidence and not even being able to spot a dead Hemraj lying on the Talwar house terrace for two days! Had the investigations not been so comprehensively botched up, perhaps the killers — Talwars or “unknown assailants” – would have long been conclusively and beyond doubt punished for the heinous act. One must remember that even nine years after the murder, fact stands that there was no forced entry into the Talwar house and the only other members inside the house when Aarushi was done to death were the Talwar couple in the next room — and as we know now — a dead servant Hemraj. Add to this, the yet unexplained reason behind the cleaning and hiding of a golf staff by Rajesh Talwar and the much too obvious dressing up of the crime scene, not to mention, the hurried cremation of Aarushi, and too many accusing fingers can be raised at her parents.

The “benefit of doubt” parlance in court language often accrues from improper investigations, a standing example of which is the Aarushi Talwar Murder Case. Though all is set for the release of the Talwars from jail today, it is almost certain that the CBI will be moving the Supreme Court against this verdict of the Allahabad High Court. Fact though is that it is a lost case, thanks to the forever lost evidence. Even former CBI director AP Singh who headed the probe has admitted of loopholes in investigations. Indeed, even the court has not said they are innocent, but that in the absence of conclusive evidence, the benefit of doubt goes to the accused. The Central Bureau of Investigation has all along maintained that the couple has killed their daughter. In 2010, two years after the murder, the CBI went to the extent of seeking a closure of the case in court due to lack of evidence but declaring that they were convinced the Talwars had killed Aarushi. So who killed AarushiIJ We will never know. That’s travesty too.