CBI witness Talwars' driver declared hostile

Ghaziabad, Sep 14: In a new twist in Aarushi-Hemraj murder trial, the Talwars' family driver and CBI witness Umesh Sharma was declared hostile by the special CBI court.

Special judge S Lal declared Umesh a "hostile witness" on the contention of public prosecutor R K Saini when the driver did not support the CBI's contention based on the evidence collected by the agency during his examination in chief in the court. He is the first CBI witness in the case who has turned hostile.

The development comes a day after CBI told the court that another prosecution witness, Talwars' maid Kalpana Mandal "is not to be examined" as she has been "won over" by the couple. Saini said the driver did not support the case as he declined to identify the golf stick 4 and 5, which were allegedly kept by him in servant Hemraj's room.

The CBI, at this juncture, took permission of the court to examine him as a hostile witness. Umesh, in his examination in chief deposed that on May 15, 2008, the day before the teenage was found dead, he saw Rajesh Talwar, his wife Nupur and daughter Aarushi at the house when he handed over the car key to Hemraj. He also told the court that the next day on May 16, 2008, the police asked him 'where is Hemaj? for which he said he did not know.

"The same day I cleaned the floor and the door mat in Aarushi's room after the consent of police personnel present at the crime scene," he said. He told the court that on the day when the two murders took place, Aarushi's room was cleaned at 4.30 PM, and mattress and ice blocks were kept at the roof of neighbouring L-28 because the terrace door of L-32, the house of Talwars in Jalvayu Vihar, was locked.

The keys of the L-28 terrace gate was given by the owner himself. During the cross examination, he stated before the court that terrace door of the L-32 was never locked before, so when he saw the terrace locked, he was very much surprised. He did not say that he asked for the keys from Nupur's mother.

PTI