Strangely enough, these days I get quite a few phone calls and e-mails inquiring about my perception of the Aarushi case. And the expression ‘trial by media’ is quite liberally used. As my last post indicates, I don’t think character assassination of a young girl after her violent demise is an acceptable proposition. However, having said that, in the given circumstance, it wasn’t possible for the media to the situation in the face of police officially declaring that Dr. Talwar found the girl and the domestic help in an ‘objectionable’ but ‘not compromising’ position. Media lapped it up and appeared to mock the description without actually taking it to its logical conclusion. The import of it is clear, subtle and very significant.
There can be hundreds of ‘objectionable’ positions given the fact that Aarushi was a young girl and the domestic help a mere servant, but ‘compromising position’ has just one meaning. If it was ‘compromising position’, Dr. Talwar gets a substantially strong legal defence of temporarily losing self-control on account of ‘grave and sudden provocation’. But the position, police says, was simply ‘objectionable’ and insists that it was ‘not compromising’, thereby weakening a possible and very foreseeable defence.
For instance, the servant sitting on the same bed with Aarushi and consoling her with her head in his lap can well be ‘objectionable position’ to her father but not ‘compromising’ by any stretch of imagination. Therefore, the ‘provocation’ may be ‘sudden’ but is not ‘grave’ enough to justify murder.
Noida police, therefore, thought well and started building their case right from the issuance of that statement. That’s not indicative of ‘incompetence’ to my mind.
HEMRAJ SINGH 