Following is the chronology of events in the 2008 Aarushi Talwar murder case:
May 16, 2008: Aarushi Talwar found dead in her bedroom. Domestic help Hemraj suspected as the killer.
May 17: Hemraj’s body found on the terrace of Talwars’ residential building.
May 19: Talwar’s former domestic help Vishnu Sharma named suspect.
May 23: Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar arrested as a key accused.
June 1: CBI takes over the probe in the case.
June 13: Talwar’s domestic help Krishna arrested by CBI.
June 26: CBI declares it a “blind case”. Rajesh Talwar denied bail by a special Ghaziabad magistrate.
July 12: Rajesh Talwar granted bail.
December 29: CBI submits closure report. Gives clean chit to servants, but points fingers at parents.
February 9, 2011: Court takes cognisance of CBI report and asks it to continue with prosecution charging Aarushi’s parents with murder and destruction of evidence.
February 21: Talwars approach Allahabad HC for quashing trial court summons.
March 18: Allahabad HC dismisses the plea.
November, 2013: Rajesh and Nupur convicted for the double murder and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad.
September 7, 2017: Allahabad HC bench reserves judgment on parents’ plea and fixes October 12 as the date of verdict.
October 12, 2017: Allahabad HC acquits Aarushi’s parents.
PTI
Allahabad: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday acquitted Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the murder of their teenage daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj in 2008.
The verdict ends a nine-year ordeal of the parents who were found guilty by a CBI court of murdering 14-year-old Aarushi in a fit of rage because they suspected her of having an affair with Hemraj.
A division bench of the court comprising justices B K Narayana and A K Mishra upheld the Talwars’ appeal against the CBI court order sentencing them to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013.
Nupur and Rajesh Talwar have been serving their sentence in Ghaziabad’s Dasna jail.
Aarushi was found dead inside her room in the Talwars’ Noida residence with her throat slit in May 2008. The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.
As the Uttar Pradesh Police drew flak over shoddy investigation into the case which was making national headlines, the then chief minister Mayawati handed over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).