Vaginal swabs did not match Aarushi’s DNA, expert tells trial court

Senior technical examiner with Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) and a prosecution witness in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case S P R Prasad told a Sessions court in Ghaziabad on Wednesday that four vaginal swabs that were sent to the CDFD did not match with Aarushi Talwar's DNA.

Aarushi's parents Rajesh and Nupur Talwar are standing trial for the murder of their daughter and domestic aide Hemraj on the intervening night of May 15 and 16, 2008.

In his examination in chief, Prasad told the court of Additional Sessions Judge Shyam Lal: "The four slides, which were from Aarushi Talwar's vaginal smears, generated female DNA. However, these did not match the DNA of Aarushi Talwar."

In his testimony, Prasad also shed light on the "mixing up" of labels of two pillow covers, one which came from Hemraj's room and the other from Krishna, a former employee of Rajesh Talwar. Krishna was earlier an accused in the case but was let off for lack of evidence.

"On March 17, 2011, CDFD, Hyderabad, received a letter from the SP (CBI), asking for a clarification on the mix-up. We checked the entire records and found that the two pillow covers were labelled incorrectly and had been interchanged. We submitted this clarification report to the CBI on March 24, 2011," Prasad said.

Previously, during the opening of evidence in court, it had been said that Hemraj's blood was found in Krishna's room. However, later, it was suggested that there had been a mix-up and the pillow cover, which had evidence of Hemraj's DNA, was from Hemraj's room and not Krishna's.

Prasad also told court that from evidence collected from Aarushi Talwar's bedroom, only her DNA profile was generated. This includes samples such as the bedsheets and a pillow. Prasad said, "From these samples, only one female DNA profile was generated, which belongs to Aarushi Talwar. It also matches the DNA profile of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, so it can be decisively said that Aarushi is the biological daughter of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar."

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