CBI witnesses contradicting each other over bloodstains on stairs,says defence

During the trial,the CBI’s investigating officer AGL Kaul said the couple had killed the two and then decided to hide Hemraj’s body in order to dispose it off later. Kaul had told the court that the Talwars had wrapped Hemraj’s body in a bedsheet and dragged him to the terrace.

While making their final arguments,defence counsels Satyaketu Singh and Tanveer Ahmed Mir told ASJ Shyam Lal that there were discrepancies in the statements made by the three prosecution witnesses — Sanjay Chauhan,Rajiv Varshney and Dr Rajiv Kochar — who had seen bloodstains on the stairs.

“Sanjay Chauhan had said he had seen bloodstains on a few stairs in the beginning of the staircase and on the railing. Varshney had seen bloodstains on the doorknob and latch at the door to the roof. Varshney came down and fetched Kochar to show him the bloodstains on the door. Kochar said he had seen a faint print of a bloodstained shoe,” Mir said.

Mir told the court that there were “inherent contradictions” in the three testimonies. “The bloodstains seen by Chauhan aren’t seen by Varshney or Kochar. While the footprint seen by Kochar wasn’t seen by Varshney,” he said.

The defence counsel told the court that there were at least seven other prosecution witnesses who had been to the stairs,but had not seen the bloodstains. They included Noida police investigating officer Dattaram Nauneria,forensic expert Chunni Lal Gautam of Noida,driver Umesh,Superintendent of Police Mahesh Kumar Mishra,neighbour Punish Rai Tandon,sub-Inspector Sunita Rana and domestic help Bharti Mandal.

Mir said the CBI had misled M S Dahiya of the Directorate of Forensic Sciences,who had said he had seen photographs of bloodstains on the stairs.

But Mir said these photographs were taken while Hemraj’s body was taken down from the terrace. He added that a polilight test — for detection of bodily fluids including blood even if they aren’t visible — conducted by forensic expert A D Saha didn’t show blood on the stairs.

The defence counsel also pointed out that even though the CBI had claimed to have conducted a dummy test of Hemraj’s body being dragged by two men,the video recording,photographs,or the test were not presented to the court. The defence said there was no evidence of cleaning in the house.