Evidence not enough, claim officials

“It would have been otherwise if we could have lifted the fingerprints from Monika’s throat and face,” say officials associated with the investigation. “But it is impossible to find fingerprints on a body five to six hours after death has occurred, even with a laser device.”

Rigor mortis, he said, sets in by that time, and perspiration and other fluids will remove even the faintest trace of any fingerprints. That the killer could have worn gloves is another reason why no fingerprints were not found on Monika’s throat and face.

Samples of clothes, semen, blood and viscera of the two were sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) yesterday. The reports are expected to be sent to the police in 15 days.

“These reports, whenever they come, will reveal the exact time when Monika and Rajiv died. It will also be found whether Monika was raped, and whether there was a third person who committed that crime. The composition as well as the quantity of the insecticide which Rajiv ingested will be ascertained,” says another police officer.

But the CFSL reports, he points out, will never establish if Rajiv or even a third person actually killed Monika. Neither will the experts be able to comment on the disappearance of the bottle containing the fatal insecticide.

More than 75 persons — including colleagues of Rajiv and Monika, who worked as assistant producers in Zee TV, their families, Taj Palace employees — have been questioned.

Photographs and video films of the fund raising party for CRY organsied by Titan on August 4, which was attended by Rajiv and Monika, have been collected by the special team. Several other documents such as letters, greeting cards and the list of calls made to and from their cellphones on August 4 have also been seized.

All of these prove beyond doubt, says a police officer, that Rajiv and Monika went to the party around 10.10 pm. Monika was wearing a fawn coloured top and black trousers, while Rajiv sported a shirt and trousers.

At least five persons, including CRY advisor Vice-Admiral (retd ) A. E. Johnson saw or met the couple at the party. The police have questioned each of them and have ascertained that Rajiv and Monika left the party around 12.30 am. No third person was seen accompanying them.

What happened thereafter is intriguing the police as well as many others. The police suspect that though Monika had spoken to her mother at 12.02 am from her cellphone to say that she would be returning within an hour, the couple might have changed their minds. Why? And where did they go? No one has answers.

According to the officials, the reconstruction of the subsequent course of events till the time when Monika and Rajiv’s bodies were found inside the bluish grey Maruti Esteem inside Rajiv’s garage at E-4 INA Colony could read thus :
* Rajiv and Monika drove into the garage sometime in the morning. No third person would have killed them outside and driven the car to the garage. Neither could he have killed them inside the garage and walked away without attracting any attention. It is an inappropriate place to kill them.

* What transpired between Monika and Rajiv is anyone’s guess. No one saw anything or heard anything.

* There is no doubt that both were alive inside the garage. Vomit samples of both were found in the car and the floor of the garage.

* The insecticide and the alcohol would have killed Rajiv within 15 minutes.Insecticides have been found to be used in only two to three per cent of murder cases. Someone must have removed the bottle from the garage in the morning.

“Circumstantial evidence may suggest many things which we suspect, but it will not be good enough to prepare a case,” says a senior police officer.