The medical fraternity hailed the Allahabad High Court verdict clearing the Talwars in the Aarushi-Hemraj killing, but domestic helpers here feel that the dentist couple got away with murder thanks to their affluence.
The high court today said neither the circumstances nor the evidence was enough to hold Nupur and Rajesh Talwar guilty in the 2008 murder of their teenage daughter and Nepalese domestic helper.
The Talwars' neighbours appeared guarded in their reaction, with most avoiding comment.
One of residents near their Sector 25 home, D Singh, said, "If not the Talwars, then who killed Arushi? However, we are happy that they have been acquitted." Indian Medical Association president Dr K K Aggarwal simply said,
"The Talwars got justice." A representative of the Association of Medical Clinics of Noida, Dr K C Sood, expressed happiness that the couple was given the benefit of doubt.
"Unless there is conclusive evidence one should not be punished. However, now it will remain a mystery. It has cast aspersions on CBI investigations," he said.
The verdict ends, at least for now, the nine-year ordeal of the Noida couple who were sentenced to life by a Ghaziabad CBI court on November 28, 2013 for the double murder that not only transfixed but also shook the nation with its element of filicide.
Nepalese domestic helper here, however, made no bones of where their sympathies lay. "The rich can get themselves acquitted. In the Nithari case too, (Moninder Singh) Pandher was acquitted. The poor cannot expect justice," said one.
Another said, "Hemraj's relatives should challenge the acquittal at the Supreme Court." At the Parsvnath Mall at Sector 27, where the Talwars ran their dental clinic, the shopkeepers supported the acquittal.
"They have suffered too much due to their daughter's murder. With the acquittal by the high court, they have got justice," said Harkesh, one of the shopkeepers.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK StalinGetty images
