Rajesh Talwar advanced Haridwar visit: Witness

Ghaziabad  :  CBI witness Kripa Shankar Tripathi, who performed the last rites of Aarushi, told a special court here that the teenager’s father Rajesh Talwar advanced his post-cremation visit to Haridwar on the advice of his relatives.

Tripathi told Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge S. Lal that, initially, Rajesh Talwar collected the ashes of his daughter and kept them in a locker May 17, 2008 to take them the next day for immersion in the Ganga at Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

But Talwar returned the same day to take the ashes, claiming that elders in the family had advised him that the immersion could not take place the next day as it was a Sunday, Tripathi said.

Defence counsel Manoj Shishodia said that after Tripathi’s testimony it had become clear that the Talwars did not go to Haridwar in haste to tamper with the evidence, as claimed by the CBI.

He said Talwars’ part-time maid Bharti Mandal had also blamed the CBI for submitting her false and fabricated statement in court.

After Tripathi’s testimony and cross-examination, the court adjourned the hearing for Thursday.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents’ Noida residence May 16, 2008. The body of her domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house.

Aarushi’s parents are accused in the double-murder.

Her mother Nupur Talwar was taken into custody April 30 and she challenged in the apex court the May 31 Allahabad High Court order rejecting her bail plea. She is lodged in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad. Rajesh Talwar is out on bail.