Killing Aarushi Again, Making Jessica Alive?

The CBI can’t solve a case. Aarushi Talwar, the 14-year-old girl who was raped and killed in her room while her parents were in the house, has left enough traces. But those traces do not seem to find their way to the source.

The Central Bureau of Investigation came into the picture soon after the Noida police made no headway. Perhaps, the entry of the CBI was the big mistake. Big people need big people to get mouths shut.

They found the weapon, they have a reasonable motive – “immediate provocation”, they know of missing files and the swapped vaginal swab, they know that someone was tampering with evidence. Then, why is it so difficult to find out who and why?

It is impossible that the findings reveal absolutely nothing. What did the DNA sample show? What did the brain-mapping reveal? Who cleared the room before the police came in? It need not be one person. These are people in different places doing different things. Who was calling the shots? And why?

Instead, the CBI has washed its hands of the case:

“The agency has filed a final report for the closure of the case on grounds of insufficient evidence in the competent court.”

It has been only two and a half years. There are cases that are pending for decades. I would like to see what Aarushi’s parents do next. It must surely be tough on them to have a daughter raped and murdered in the next room and the place cleaned up while they were around just a few metres away, isn’t it? They should file a case against the Noida police and the CBI and the hospital authorities for shirking their duty and making a mockery of justice.

They have the power, being educated and relatively better-off than many who do not have the means. Let this be a fight for the silent Aarushis and the silenced ones.


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This brings us to the film being made on model Jessica Lall who was murdered in a posh resto-bar in Delhi. It became a prominent case because of the person concerned and the place where it happened. Now that the movie is due to be released, the promos have started. I understand that today marketing is crucial, although it does not guarantee a huge turnout. What bothers me is the manner in which it is being pushed. No One Killed Jessica is being promoted as a thriller and the actors are saying so. I find it disgusting. Worse, gossip items in the newspapers give details about the one-upmanship between the two main characters, Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan, who are playing an investigative reporter and Sabrina, the sister of Jessica, in the film. We then hear about how they have made up, going to the extent of a mouth-to-mouth kiss. What are they trying to hawk?

They are so insensitive and ignorant that they happily dance and sing when the subject is clearly not a tamasha. I am not saying that the reality shows they appear on lend themselves to such gravitas or should, but can they not at least respect the dead person on whose name they are trying to score? The PR people would most definitely have sent them on these errands, but what they do there is certainly impromptu. It is about them, their best role, their song, their mutual admiration.

Anyhow, the film will be seen by high society because it is all the in-the-know people who will be ‘touched and moved’ that at last Jessica’s memory has been kept alive, never mind the fractured sides that were taken whenever the case came up for hearing. The premiere will be another Page 3 moment with buttered popcorn and Diet Pepsi.