[Assam] [assam] India's middle-class murder trial stokes concerns about changing values

[bhuban.baruah]

The Guardian UK (May 12, 2012)

India's middle-class murder trial stokes concerns about changing values
Teenager Aarushi Talwar's parents are accused of killing her and their 
male housekeeper in a trial that has divided public opinion

Jason Burke in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 May 2012 14.54 BST

Nupur Talwar is escorted from prison to court. Photograph: Manan 
Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images
The trial of a middle-aged, middle-class couple accused of murdering 
their daughter and a male domestic help has opened in Delhi amid 
massive media attention and concerns about its role as a focus for the 
fears of many about changing values in India.

Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, successful dentists from the prosperous suburb 
of Noida just outside the Indian capital, are accused of killing 
14-year-old Aarushi and Yam Prasad Banjade, a 45-year-old male 
housekeeper, and hiding the evidence. Investigators say the girl was 
murdered when her parents found out about a sexual relationship between 
the two. The couple say they are innocent victims of a miscarriage of 
justice.

The story has laid bare fault lines in a society caught between 
entrenched traditions and rapid development.

Columnist and TV executive Sagarika Ghosh said the case had "become a 
concentration of the many concerns in contemporary India: about upward 
mobility, about professional women, about working mothers, about the 
relationship between employer and 'servant'. It's a microcosm of the 
Indian predicament."

The case has also highlighted concerns about the failures of Indian law 
enforcement agencies. Police and government investigators are accused 
of having botched successive inquiries into the double murder four 
years ago and of pursuing a vendetta against the pair to cover up their 
own shortcomings.

The couple have welcomed the hearings, saying they will finally clear 
their name.

"In our country, you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. 
They have made us guilty and told us 'prove your innocence'. I have to 
go to trial," Rajesh Talwar said earlier this year.

The body of Aarushi was discovered by her mother on the morning of 16 
May 2008. Her throat had been cut, there were signs of a violent 
assault and a blood-stained bottle of whisky stood nearby. Initially 
suspicion fell on Banjade, the servant, but then, 36 hours after the 
police had first entered the apartment, his body was found on the roof. 
He had suffered similar injuries.

Shortly afterwards, Rajesh Talwar was arrested for murder, then 
released, then re-arrested along with his wife following further 
investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a national 
agency.

Throughout, the Talwars' defenders have pointed out that most of the 
forensic evidence in the flat was destroyed by police themselves or by 
the media who were allowed to roam freely on the crime scene and that 
postmortems were inconclusive. They also say that successive inquiries 
have contradicted each other over key elements.

The Talwars' critics – as well as frequently quoted "sources" within 
the police and CBI – claim that the popular and pretty Aarushi was 
killed by her enraged father when found in bed with Banjade. Such 
murders to "preserve the family honour" are still common in India and 
often accepted even among the new middle class. Last week, a senior 
police officer was quoted as telling a man whose daughter had been 
abducted and raped that he should either kill her or himself.

The true scale of such murders is unknown. Police routinely demand 
bribes from bereaved parents to reclassify such deaths as accidental. 
Campaigners against so-called "honour killings" have seen the failure 
to convict Rajesh Talwar as a further example of the failure of police 
to take such cases seriously, particularly officers in conservative, 
poor and corrupt states like Uttar Pradesh, where Noida, despite its 
proximity to Delhi, lies.

Rajesh Talwar is also accused of killing the servant. Though murder of 
domestic help is rare in India, abuse is not. Many Indian middle-class 
households have up to half a dozen servants, most of whom come from 
poor rural areas. Most work long hours for little pay and with no job 
security.

The case thus touches on a series of hugely sensitive issues.

In a court order last week, a judge denied bail to Nupur Talwarsaying 
"everything is possible in these days of modern era where moral values 
are fast declining and one can stoop to the lowest level".

Ghosh, said the case was "not about evidence" any more.

"It has become an example of the paranoia that people have about a 
crisis in Indian values. Lots of people fear progress," she told the 
Guardian.

Friday's hearing was taken up with legal arguments. The trial will 
continue next week