The Talwars: Behind closed doors (HBO Asia, Documentary; 2017)It all started with Fr Martin Luther pinning his thesis on the church door some 500 years ago. He posited that people wanted to know and experience the truth for themselves. They want to read the scriptures in their mother tongue. They do not want the Truth to be exclusive to the few in power. The elitists reiterated that the general public cannot handle the truth. Some things are better left to the experts to interpret.
Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution and Internet era, people's thirst for the Truth had escalated to phenomenal heights. Still, they feel inadequate, devoid of comprehending most of the Universe's secrets. Media practitioners took the bold stop of mongering news right into their living rooms. They even televised real-time combat scenes as it happened as seen during Desert Storm.
This documentary which is a summary of a real-life case that happened in 2008 shows, among other things, how the interference of press may hamper the investigation and steer the progress of a case according to public sentiments.
In a gist, this famous murder of a 13-year-old girl of two dentists parents, Talwars, and their butler, in Nodia, outside Delhi, took the country by storm. It was fuelled partly by the media-seeking parents. Maybe they did it to seek swift apprehension of the perpetrator. Perhaps because we live in a media hungry society, our every action is broadcasted. The investigations and trials went on for almost ten long years. The local police and two teams of the Central Bureau of Investigations were involved.
From the word go, police investigations did not progress smoothly. The crime scene was not cordoned. The press and the curious general public had free access to the flat of the Talwars like it was a funfair. TV viewers almost had a live coverage on the scene on the ground as and when police discovered something.
As the situation became more complicated, the parents were charged with honour killing. The murdered long-time resident butler was accused of rape. It later evolved into a trial by media of the clash of the classes; where the upper middle class hurling baseless accusations against the lowly working class and immigrants to cover shame in the family. There were also accusations of manipulation of the investigation by nepotism and steering of public sentiments via a media frenzy to conserve the good names of the affluent.
In October 2017, the Talwars were acquitted for lack of evidence. The case remains unsolved. Also see the write-up on Bollywood's film based on this murder, (Rahasya)
The documentary begins with Drs. Rajesh and Nupur Talwar on the morning of 16 May 2008, discovering their daughter, Aarushi Talwar, lying dead in her bed, bludgeoned and with her throat cut. Their Nepali servant, Hemraj Banjade, is missing and believed to be the culprit until his bloated and battered body is discovered on the apartment roof terrace. There were seemingly just the four people in the apartment that night and only two of them are still alive. To the police investigation teams leading the inquiry, the parents must be the murderers, but after nine years, three investigations, a trial and appeal, and now an acquittal, nothing is as it seems. Featuring never-before-seen exclusive interviews with Aarushi’s parents, THE TALWARS: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS speaks with those most closely involved in this twisted tale of intrigue, mystery that has turned this double murder into one of India’s most notorious crimes. [HBO]
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