Relieved after the verdict, we went through trying times: Talwar family

The nine-year trial in the murder of their daughter Aarushi had left the Talwar couple emotionally drained, Nupur Talwar’s father said on Thursday, thanking the judiciary for acquitting them.

B G Chitnis, a former group captain in the Indian Air Force, said it was very trying for him to see his daughter, Nupur and her husband Rajesh behind bars.

“I am grateful to the judiciary for the verdict. They (the Talwar couple) have really suffered. They are emotionally drained. At my age it was very trying to see my daughter and son-in-law put behind bars for a crime they did not commit,” he told reporters.

Vandana Talwar, Aarushi’s aunt, said the entire family had suffered for nearly a decade as the case dragged on.

“We are deeply relieved and thankful to God for the verdict. It’s been an exhausting journey for us and extremely trying for our family,” she said.

She refused to go into the merits of the case and the judgment, saying the couple’s lawyers would answer questions on who killed Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj.

“We are really grateful to the high court for having acquitted Rajesh and Nupur and brought an end to injustice meted out to them.

“I would like to thank all the people who supported us through the long ordeal -- our family, friends, team of lawyers and people who were not even known to us before this tragedy happened,” she said.

She thanked people for supporting them physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and even financially.

Masuma, a family friend of the Talwars, said that with the verdict, a nine-year ordeal had come to an end. However, she added that investigation agencies still have to crack the puzzle of who killed Aarushi and Hemraj.

“It’s a positive verdict. There were two murders that happened that day. It’s a question (who killed them) that has plagued all of us in the last nine years. That is a question for this country’s investigating agencies to answer,” she said. 

She said that the couple were not even able to grieve for their child, “the centre of their universe”, and it would be difficult for them to return to a life of normalcy.

The Allahabad high court on Thursday acquitted the Talwar couple, saying they could not be held guilty on the basis of the evidence on record.

The verdict ends the ordeal of the parents who were found guilty by a Central Bureau of Investigation court in the sensational double murder. 

A division bench of the court comprising justices B K Narayana and A K Mishra upheld the appeals by the Talwars against the Ghaziabad CBI court order sentencing them to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013. 

Aarushi was found dead inside her room in the Talwars’ Noida residence with her throat slit in May 2008. The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house a day later.