Arushi case: Mired in a mess

Delhi Police is skeptical that recovery of Arushi's cellphone, 16 months after her murder, would help in cracking the twin murder
Akash Bisht Delhi Hardnews

The media and Delhi Police are going hysterical over the city crime branch's latest find: Arushi Talwar's mobile phone that has been missing since she was killed at her Jalvayu Vihar apartments in Noida on May 16, 2008. It's been more than 16 months since the murder and the case has made no headway due to lack of evidence. The question remains whether the recovery of the mobile phone would make any new inroads in the case.

Arushi's mobile was traced to Bulandshahr in UP. It was found with a bank guard identified as Ram Phool. He was arrested and is being interrogated. He informed the police that his nephew, whose mother works as a sweeper in Sector 37, Noida, gave him the mobile. The police are trying to trace the woman who first found a black Nokia N72 with SIM number 9910520630.

Sources told Hardnews that Ram was using the phone on and off and was reportedly using it since Friday and switched it off after every use. Except this, he hasn't confessed to anything else. However, sources in Delhi Police told Hardnews that the finding of Arushi's mobile phone wouldn't help in making much of a breakthrough as the call details are already with the CBI. Some other information like text messages and pictures could help in nailing the killer. But sources in Delhi Police are sceptical about any such results as call and SMS records were examined soon after the murder with no avail. There was no activity on her mobile phone after 9.10 pm of the night she was murdered.

A UP police officer, who was part of the investigating team that found Hemraj's body the very next day, said that when he visited the spot, evidences were all over but due to police's incompetence to record these evidences, most of them were never recovered. Even the fingerprints that were found on the murder site couldn't be preserved due to sheer negligence and incompetence. The officer reportedly said that all the policemen investigating the scene should be dismissed.

The case has many loopholes. There have been allegations of destruction of evidence at the crime scene by the Noida police, swapping of the victim's vaginal swab and recovery of phone after 16 months while the CBI had the IMEI number of the handset.

Hardnews was informed that the CBI has again resumed search of the Jalvayu apartments for the murder weapons that could help in solving the case. With sluggish developments and a possible involvement of high profile names, any outcome in this twin murder remains a far-fetched dream.