Allahabad High Court acquitted Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in a case related to the murder of their daughter Aarushi Talwar and manservant Hemraj Banjade, reports emerged on Thursday.
On May 16, 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found dead in the bedroom of her Noida house. Missing domestic help Hemraj Banjade was initially thought to have been the perpetrator, but, a day later, his body was discovered from the terrace, with throat slit and covered in a pool of blood. The door was locked from the inside.
Though a former domestic help Vishnu Sharma initially came under the scanner, on May 23, police suspected the case to be one of honour killing and arrested Aarushi's parents, Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar.
Lie detection tests were conducted on Rajesh and Nupur, but the results were inconclusive. On December 29, CBI filed a closure report citing insufficient evidence. In the same report, the servants were exonerated, but the parents remained under a cloud of doubt. However, on February 9, trial court rejected the closure report.
Both Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court rejected pleas for quashing the trial court summons. In November 2013, a CBI special court in Ghaziabad found the couple guilty of double murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment.