Crime, punishment

If there is anything the Arushi case has revealed, it is the flimsiness of the rule of law in our country. Between the police, the media and popular speculation, every secret anxiety of our society has been strummed, but the actual investigation into the crime was criminally mishandled. The UP police, upon first encountering the case, declared that Arushi Talwar had been murdered by the domestic help, Hemraj — only to discover days later that Hemraj himself had been killed. Later, they arrested her father, Dr Talwar, seemingly without a shred of evidence, and complicated the case for the CBI by allowing key forensic evidence to be overlooked. Then, as the All India Democratic Women’s Association put it, they displayed their “patriarchal prejudices, anti-poor bias and insensitivity” as they broadcast their sordid theories about the Talwars and the victims.

Now it turns out, this was entirely based on one primary source, Krishna — who is, by the CBI’s narrative, the real culprit. It is baffling that the UP police would be so easily gulled by Krishna, even if they were in a tearing hurry to wrap up the case, and emboldened enough to air their outrageous accusations on national television. The UP police now defend themselves claiming that they were only in the early stages of the investigation, had not filed any charges against Dr Talwar, and would have reached the same conclusions if the CBI had not snatched the case away from them, a claim that would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

Now the Union minister for women and child development, Renuka Choudhary, has recommended that the Talwars “sue the state police” and that “those responsible for bungling the case terrifyingly must be suspended”. The Arushi case has been tossed back and forth between Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh and the Congress-led government at the Centre. And a judicial probe has been set up, to investigate the various investigations and apportion blame. But even as the CBI winds up the case and Dr Talwar joins his grieving family, Arushi’s face will haunt our collective imagination for a while.