The narco analysis of compounder Krishna, which Karnataka State Forensic Science Laboratory director Dr B Mohan claims has “taken investigations in the Arushi case in a new direction”, is a rambling account in which Krishna claims he was present with three others at the Talwar residence in Noida on the night of May 15 that Arushi was killed.A source associated with the narco analysis has told The Indian Express that Krishna claimed Arushi was killed after a drunk Raj Kumar (the domestic help of the Durranis, friends of the Talwar family) tried to force himself on her and there were fears she would raise an alarm, and that Hemraj was murdered because he was a witness.The source said that Krishna named himself, Hemraj, Raj Kumar and a fourth man, Shambhu, as being present at the Talwar home, apart from the family, on the night of May 15. But CBI Joint Director Arun Kumar has denied the involvement in the case of any person called Shambhu.“A khukri was used and they left jumping terraces,” sources quoted Krishna as saying during the narco analysis.This narco-analysis was conducted on June 12-13, five days before the CBI informed a Ghaziabad court that Krishna had confessed to his “involvement” in the murders of Arushi and Hemraj. According to the CBI, Hemraj had asked Krishna for a khukri and it was given to him on May 14. Krishna, the court was told, visited Hemraj at Talwar’s residence around May 15 midnight. Arushi was found murdered on the morning of May 16. Raj Kumar was picked up by CBI on June 4 and has been questioned several times in the presence of Krishna, Dr Rajesh Talwar, his wife Nupur Talwar, Dr Anita Durrani and maid Bharti. He has been put through a lie-detector test and a psychoanalysis test which, according to CBI officials, were inconclusive. He has not yet been been arrested and the CBI calls him for questioning whenever he is needed. His room was searched and later sealed by CBI. He is now staying with a relative.KSFSL director Dr B Mohan said: “The narco analysis (of Krishna) has taken investigations in the Arushi case in a new direction. The findings of the tests are still a matter of investigation and cannot be commented upon.”How reliable Krishna’s claims are is open to question. For example, in the case of Imran alias Bilal Ahmed Kota, a Kashmiri handicrafts salesman from Hospet in Karnataka arrested on January 5, 2007 on the basis of intelligence inputs, narco analysis led investigators to initially believe they had found a key link to the December 2005 terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.He was subjected to three rounds of narcoanalysis at a Bangalore hospital during which the JKLF activist from the early 1990s revealed what seemed to be various aspects of his role in the IISc attack. He told investigators details about a taxi, including the registration number, which he said he used during the December 2005 IISc attack, apart from details of a man from a local college who helped him and the places he stayed at. After days of work to develop the leads provided by Bilal, the anti-terrorist cell of the Bangalore police finally threw up their arms and said they had hit a dead-end.“Most of the information provided could not be corroborated. There seems to be some sort of information overlap in narcoanalysis. What was seen as information regarding the IISc attack was actually an operation that he was planning,” a senior police officer said.Asked about this “information overlap”, KSFSL director Mohan said: “There are no such memory overlaps or distortions. These are comments made by people unaware of the methodology involved in the tests.”Told of criticism about edited versions of tests being given to investigators instead of entire recordings, thereby giving rise to doubts over the objectivity of some of the tests, Mohan said: “We have standardised processes. We have gradually eliminated shortcomings in the tests. We will soon be publishing scientific papers too.”
