New CBI team to probe Aarushi murder case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is forming a new team to probe the sensational murders of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and her family's domestic help Hemraj last year, the agency announced Wednesday, days after reports said the vaginal swabs of the teenager may have been substituted.

"A new team is being formed to probe the Aarushi murder case," CBI spokesman Harsh Bhal told IANS.

Bhal said CBI Deputy Inspector General "Arun Kumar (who was leading the probe) is completing his term in October. Arun Kumar has sought early repatriation (to Uttar Pradesh) and that is why the new team will be formed before his term ends".

The new team is being formed 17 months after Aarushi was found murdered in her parents' Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida May 16 last year. The family's domestic help Hemraj was found murdered a day later on the terrace of the house. The case has remained an unsolved riddle.

On Sep 5, IANS reported that Kumar has been asked to return to his home state following poor handling of the sensational double murder case. The decision follows the startling reports of a surreptitious replacement of Aarushi's vaginal swabs with another women's.

Kumar, a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, was on deputation to the CBI.

Earlier on Wednesday, the CBI maintained it had known "for eight months" that the vaginal swabs of Aarushi may have been substituted and that it was probing the tampering of evidence.

"Our investigators have been following this angle for the last eight months and will soon file a status report in the Supreme Court," Bhal said, when asked about the DNA sample of the teenaged victim reportedly being changed with that of an unidentified woman.

"There is nothing new in it (the allegations of tampering) as far as investigations are considered," he said.

Bhal refused to divulge any more details, saying the murder was being investigated and the matter was sub judice. "Nothing can be shared with the media right now."

The double murders have remained one of the country's biggest whodunits. After meandering through unexpected twists and turns, the probe had almost reached a dead-end.

All those who were picked up for interrogation in the initial weeks of the murder - Aarushi's dentist-father Rajesh Talwar, his medical assistant Krishna and two other domestic helps, Raj Kumar and Vijay Mandal - are out while the CBI still continues to hunt for material evidence.

But latest reports that the vaginal swabs were substituted has re-ignited media and public interest in the case.

There have been allegations that a pathologist, Richa Saxena, who works for a government hospital in Noida, had tampered with the DNA samples. But Saxena, who collected the swab samples taken by doctor Sunil Dohre during the autopsy, insisted that there was no mix-up.

"It is sheer mischief to rake up another controversy," Saxena, who was at that time assisting Dohre, told IANS. Saxena, who was said to be absconding, also insisted that she was being "dragged into a bigger conspiracy".

"I am not absconding but have been very disturbed with false allegations against me. This is a conspiracy to shield the real culprits in the case and I am being dragged into this large conspiracy," said Saxena.

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