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‘UP mein hai dum kyon ki jurm hai yahan kam’ line of Amitabh Bachachan for an advertisement for the now departed Mulayam Singh Yadav government continues to haunt him. It was only he who pretended to believe in the crime figure of the UP police. The Noida double murder and its investigation will haunt the whole of police force in the country and is likely to become a case study for all that goes wrong.
All hell broke loose when the next day the body of the missing servant was found on the roof of the same house. Amidst hue and cry the investigating team was changed and speculation became the order of the moment as towho could have committed the double murder. Aarushi Talwar, the teen aged daughter of Dr. Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, was the only child and this public knowledge gave every one the competence to be a sociologist, psychologist and a crime investigator at the same time. Could it be that the parents had murdered the child? After all such things are not unknown. The Uttar Pradesh Police certainly thought so. It was a crime of ‘passion’ or of ‘honour killing’ said a top police officer in Lucknow and then all hell broke when the DIG of the Meerut range announced that it was the father Dr. Rajesh Talwar who had murdered his daughter because he found her in an unacceptable relationship with the servant Hem Raj. The smug cop went on to claim that the daughter, a 14 year old now dead, was as ‘characterless’ as her father and had developed intimate relationship with 45 year old servant. Naturally Dr. Talwar was arrested and the whole civil population watched in horror and disbelief for it was a crime against nature and yet every one knew that such murders do take place in the country. It was only the other day that a girl along with her lover had been murdered a couple of hours drive from Delhi. But then such reactions do not happen in homes like that of the Talwars. They have other equally effective ways of dealing with these situations. It was also suggested that Dr. Talwar was having an affair with a colleague of his and Aaarushi being aware of it, objected to it. Thus the UPpolice imputed two motives to the crime. It was a crime of ‘passion’ as Dr. Talwar was having an affair with his colleague and the daughter was becoming an obstacle and it was also a case of ‘honour killing’ as the daughter was having a kind of objectionable relationship with the servant. The next day the police leaked the email contents of Aarushi hinting at some kind of strained relationship with her father and with a suggestion of her acceptance of her guilt. What was that guilt? The police and the television channels knew the answer and they went hammer and tong broadcasting it. More shame was to follow when a channel telecast an ‘Aarushi MMS’ and the UP police sat smugly having ‘solved’ the case. Even the Chief Minister Mayawati defended her force and claimed that there electronic evidence with it. A few among the society who had found the whole affair too abhorrent to be believed continued to disbelieve what were being asked to believe. They were uncomfortable at the ‘truth’ that the police and the media had discovered but they had no voice till Renuka Chowdhary, the State Minister for Women and Child Development raised the issue of denigrating a child who was dead and therefore unable to defend herself. It was only after that that the conscience of the timid middle class rose and began protesting the manner in which the case had been solved. To the credit of UP Chief Minister Mayawati, she too recognized that a few links were missing and decided to hand over the case to the CBI. It is possible that Dr. Talwar might still be having a role in the murder though that would be a shocking revelation but the whole point is that there is sickness in the society that treats such crime in such a cavalier and titillating manner. The Noida police ‘solved’ the murder the very first morning by putting up look out notices for the ‘absconding’ servant Hem Raj. The solution barely lasted a day till the body of Hem Raj was discovered. But it raises a awkward questions: Are servants invariably suspects? What would have happened to Hem Raj if he had been alive? The manner in which everyone accepted the servant suspect theory, is it possible that had Hem Raj been arrested and interrogated as only Indian police can, might he not have given a signed confession? One shudders at the manner wheels of justice move in our society. With egg splattered all over its face after the dead body of the servant was discovered one might have hoped that it would be replaced by a more competent team. The replacement turned out to be worse than the replaced and now even if that team has been replaced one needs to mobilize support for the demand of Minister Renuka Chowdhary that stringent action be taken against all those who willfully denigrated a child. It is possible that our society might graduate from tolerating the absurd and the deviant behaviour of the people in responsible to making them legally accountable for their words and deeds but unless a larger issue is also addressed it would be a hollow achievement. What has been a matter of equally great concern than the functioning of the police is the response of the 24 hour news channels. One understands the competitive nature of their business but even then there have to be certain rules that guide them. Certainly they do not have the right to circulate speculation as news and hard facts. But a new dimension has been added to it by the news that a popular television serial producer working under a banner that flaunts the name of one of our patron Gods intended making a serial and money out of the sordid event. One can understand the anguish of Nupur Talwar, the mother of Aarushi and wife of Dr. Talwar who has lodged a strong protest with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) against the television channels and the said production house. She has complained of the ‘perpetuated’ character assassination of her daughter that began with the investigating agency, i.e. UP police. Now the production was planning a serial ostensibly portraying the whole tragedy as ‘honour killing’. She has demanded action against them. She has asked that “Does the media have the right to vitiate the public opinion to the extent that an innocent person is made the victim of salacious machinations designed to increase TRPs of the channels?” Nupur Talwar has added that “The tragedy that our family is going through is a grave one. But the greater tragedy would be the inability of this country to regulate the pillars of democracy to ensure fairness, transparency and justice for all, dead and living. We feel that these agencies (UP police) and errant TV channels should not only apologise to the family and the public, but should also face stiff legal action.” The truth is that no one ever expected the police to behave any differently. To the incompetence is added the additional burden of solving a crime. In case of the Noida murders they did it twice over with tragic results. However, it is the media that has been the target of much of the flak. One understands their need to win TRPs as also the fact that a crime invariably leads to the dark and repulsive underbelly of mankind. In exploring some of the facts that come to light are ugly and often unacceptable to the civil world. But they are there even if we do not like them. But in the present case the media has transgressed many a norms. Apart from becoming a tool in the destruction of a family’s reputation if Dr. Talwar is finally cleared of the charges it has cast unfounded aspersions on a child who is dead. This betrays a sick and perverted mind. | |
It
was a press conference that is best erased off the memory. In fact, but
for the television channels that thrive on catering to the baser
instincts of humanity not much attention would have been paid by the
viewers to the whole deed. A murder had taken place in one of our oasis
of prosperity and the local police of Noida immediately zeroed in on the
servant who was missing. It was a common enough pattern. Or, was it?
