Aarushi

by Avirook Sen

The murders that gripped the nationSeven years ago a teenage girl, Aarushi Talwar, was found murdered in her bedroom in Noida, a middle-class suburb of Delhi. The body of the prime suspect—the family servant, Hemraj—was discovered a day later. Who had committed the double murders, and why? Within weeks, Aarushi’s parents, the Talwars, were accused; four years later, they went on trial and were convicted. But did they do it?Avirook Sen attended the trial, accessed important documents and interviewed all the players—from Aarushi’s friends to Hemraj’s old boss, from the investigators to the forensic scientists—to write a meticulous and chilling book that reads like a thriller but also tells a story that is horrifyingly true. Aarushi is the definitive account of a sensational crime, and the investigation and trial that followed.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, True Crime, India, Mystery, Journalism, Thriller

325 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2015

Reviews

[Booky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't want to read this book. The cover turned me off. The splatters of blood (laminated, for special effect) made me think it was some sensationalist cheap thriller based on a real crime. It's actually an intelligent, sensitive portrayal of the family and the crime, with scathing insights on the botched investigation and our populist courts.
While I don't buy that the Talwars were entirely innocent (I mean, there were only Aarushi, her parents and a servant in the house at the time of the crime - this much is established. Aarushi and one of the servants are the murder victims, having been killed on the same night in the same manner. That leaves only the parents...) BUT these are all suspicions.
A Guilty verdict has to be based on reliable evidence. The police and CBI couldn't even establish the murder weapons used. (What about the fingerprints on the golf club? As for the weapon used to slit their throats after clubbing them - what about the fingerprints on that?) I had to accept that the police and the CBI don't have any proper procedures to investigate the crime. The very fact that the second victim was found on the terrace of the SAME HOUSE 2 days after the first body was found...Words cannot describe such gross negligence and apathy in investigating the scene of the crime.
At least some proper doctors did the autopsies. We all know that when poor people get murdered, the autopsy is carried out by doms(?) if I remember right in a facility resembling a butcher shop. Mercifully Aarushi was not poor.
I definitely agree with the author that no incriminating evidence was found against the parents or the other servant because whatever passed in the name of the investigation was a horribly botched up affair, with no established procedures, even the labeling and sealing of evidence was not a reliable process. They didn't even bother to cordon off the crime scene. I don't know what more to say, except that we all know our courts, our CBI...They are horribly incompetent. The police force is stressed and overworked. (No sniffer dogs available because everything is diverted to make arrangements for a VIP visit next day.)
The courts try to cover up the incompetence of the entire law enforcement system by quickly passing some populist judgment, and their job is done. Bastards. When there is no media interest, the same cases drag on for decades with no resolution. Well, this is our country.
It makes me sad, it makes me mad. This whole mockery of justice wouldn't happen if the CBI and police force had a reliable process for investigating a crime and recording evidence.

[Anamika · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, repeat after me : My name is Reader and I am not a Judge. I am reading a book, not hearing evidence. I promise to read with an open mind, an open mind and nothing but an open mind so help me god.

https://thebookstoryblog.wordpress.co...

Ok. Yes, I’m a fan of American legal dramas and I wish that this book had been written by John Grisham or the case had been argued by Eugene Young, Plan B-ed and all. But then, who needs fiction when you have This.
This book takes you back to that day in 2008 and tells you the story once more, but this time it tells you what the Talwars want you to hear. There is nothing new actually, most of this has already been reported in some website or the other. Ofcourse, it paints the picture of innocent Talwars. You have little pieces of information passing of as casual narration, but you will read later about how this ‘casual moment’ becomes crucial to the evidence. Like how Aarushi went to bed that night and undid the naada on her pajamas because the elastic was enough, she thought. An entire section later, you will learn that the undone nada would be one of the invoked by a witness to imply that the pajamas were pulled up after the murder. Or how golf clubs that were one of the stars in the case were casually found and replaced. Anyway, this book is from the Talwars point of view and this is what you should expect. (Repeating the first line again and moving on)

But it also opens the Pandora's box of the ugliness of the entire legal system in India, right from the lowly policeman who photographs the evidence and then says '‘Dhyan nahin hai' to all questions asked in court to the honourable (?) judge who writes about Hemraj's 'turgid willy' and 'swollen pecker' in the judgement. Sweepers whose statements are taken as authority in postmortem reports, bloodstained pillow cover evidence that gets mixed up due to 'typos',mysterious women and a curious magistrate (who had no business to be there) doing casual disaster tourism to survey the crime scene,multiple lab reports with jarring contradictions,judgmental witnesses who talk about Nupur Talwar's dressing sense and 'looking at herself in the mirror' at the murder scene, sick mindgames like sending emails to Rajesh Talwar from an id 'hemraj.jalvayuvihar@gmail.com' ... the list is endless. The casual way in which crucial evidence was mishandled makes me think that the police thought they had a clean cut case of Hemraj killing Aarushi the first day and so they took it too easy on Day One. And that initial inefficiency had a domino effect that went all haywire and led to this.

Uglier, are the character assassinations. Building a character judgement based on a teenager’s Orkut communication, getting cheap thrills at the thought a wife swapping group, and using a confession about an extra marital affair during a narco test blackmail are just the tip of the ugly iceberg. But here again, the author casually drops in bits of information about the caste of the investigating officer to emphasise the point that he takes honour killings for granted.

I still don’t know what happened. I may never know what happened. But I also don’t know what to believe.

I have grown up, so I am not going to play judge, jury, executioner and gossip columnist. But one thing that this book has proved beyond all doubt is this: The justice system in India is fucked up beyond redemption. And there is no hope.

[Viju · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not an easy read. In fact, it is one of more difficult reads I have done in the last few months. However, it is not the writing that makes it difficult. It is the events, the careless handling of the high-profile Aarushi case by almost everyone associated with it and the aftermath of the trial which makes it a difficult read.

I had some apprehension about reading this, but Avirook has managed to ensure that this is a thoroughly researched no-bias read. One just wishes that the case was also researched this well by the police and the CBI.

[Jasdeep Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, Engaging Gripping Read.
Throws light on the dismal state of affairs in policing, CBI, and Judiciary.
Appalling how the foremost agency CBI cooked up facts, coerced witnesses to frame the parents of Aarushi. Overlooking the real suspects.
Also informs about how the same forensic expert Dahiya has made an outlandish story about Godhra train tragedy too.

[Arun Divakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The gruesomeness of the double murders of Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj Banjade was a rude jolt to people who followed the media. To compound to the horror, the murders occurred within the confines of a well-to-do urban middle class home in Noida. During 2008, the smartphone industry had not taken off in India and not everyone was connected to the internet all the time. Ergo, the very few news channels at work during this time and the print media had a field day following the discovery of these murders. The fact that inside a locked house that housed an urbane couple, their only child and a servant there was not one but two grisly murders carried out stunned middle class families to horrified silence. The Police investigation which was underway was deemed not satisfactory and with a lot of political and public fanfare, the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

We humans have this nature of forgetting even the most grisly things which are not directly connected to us and so happened with the double murder case until the time the CBI announced that the parents – Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were the killers. Overnight the harried, tragic figures of parenthood were converted to a pair of cold blooded murderers. Avirook Sen’s book is an account of the investigation that followed the murder of a child who would have turned 14 the night she was murdered. While it is not a watertight account, this is certainly a solid retelling of this horrific event.

Right from the morning on which Aarushi’s body was discovered on the bed, the investigation undertaken by the Police was a shambles. A crowd of people walked in and out of the room and believe it or not the entire room was cleaned and washed before anyone even thought of arcane things like forensics or crime scene photography. There is a sort of innate trust that a commoner places on the policing system but even if that were to be kept aside, there is a degree of competence we expect from a working professional which were totally absent here. According to Sen, when they failed to find any sort of evidence to help them proceed the Police went ahead and did a press meeting in which they made a fantastic announcement that there was dirty sex involved in the murder. This was a time when news channels were competing for better ratings and like the smart people they were, the determination was made that nothing brings in more ratings than a double homicide with a sexual undertone added to it. What a lot of them forgot or chose to ignore was that calling a 13 year old child a sexually promiscuous individual would have been disrespectful to the extreme. In the race to win more ratings, such minor humane feelings were swept under the carpet. The media frenzy reached such a level that the Supreme Court finally intervened and asked to stop ‘trial by media’ and focus on the courts instead.

By the time the CBI comes on board, the public and media pressure became rather intense and the first team led by Arun Kumar gets on the job. But before it all begins to make sense there is a change of guard at the top of the CBI. As with all leadership changes, there is a team reshuffle and the next set of investigators are called in. This is where Sen reserves his most acerbic criticism for the investigators A.G.L Kaul and Dr. Dahiya who in more fancy language he calls incompetent, blundering egoists whose only objective was to close the case no matter what it took. Sen points out multiple instances where he questions the credibility of Kaul and also calls his deductions as farfetched and bordering on the fantastic. The case lands up in court and the Talwars are declared guilty. Even here Sen highlights that even before the hearing commenced on the case, the judge presiding over the case had decided that the parents were guilty. The events that follow this murder are shocking to behold and one that we hope never befalls on another individual.

The biggest turn off for this book is that it is not an objective account. Right from the start, the author subtly puts the suggestion across that the Talwars are both innocent. Even when scathing criticism is poured on the court, the media, the witnesses, the police and CBI the Talwars are not given even a customary second glance. As a reader, I do not know who the actual perpetrators of this crime were but Sen makes no secret of the fact that he is on the side of the Talwars here. This is the biggest undoing of this book. A combination of bad luck, incompetence and political interference made the case the mess it is but the innocence of the parents is not something that the reader can decide solely on the basis of this book.

The author doesn’t try to play the detective but sticks with the facts and goes for a retelling which is commendable. This is a harrowing account of how the justice system can go wrong and fail our expectations.

Note : In case you are interested in this story, don’t miss out on Meghna Gulzar’s fantastic movie ’Talvar’ starring the brilliant Irrfan Khan.

[Priyanka Tandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its hard to give a rating to a book like this. I thought for a good two days before I could even bring myself to say that I have read this book. Over the last two days have been reading many articles on the murder case again... and emotions running high.... a deep sadness for what happened to Aarushi and more importantly the way her parents are being treated.. and a bewilderment and helplessness at the state of our police and the judiciary system. The fact that the government bodies are steeped into corruption is not a new thing, the fact that police and even CBI botch up or are nuable to solve crime is not a surprise. Still, reading this makes you feel helpless and a prayer crosses the lips...

And therefore, I don't think anyone can objectively give this book any particular rating. How do you clinically review a book like this, is beyond me!

The book is divided in three sections and right from the first word, it is very clear that the author strongly believes in the innocence of the Talwars and that feeling gets stronger by the page. At times, it seems that he is screaming out of frustration and anger at how things were unfolding, how luck and wits were playing against the Talwars... At times, I did wonder is he being objective? Is he looking at this objectively? Why will someone in CBI go after a middle-class middle aged couple with no political interest vested in the case! Avirook provides the answers to these questions in the third part. The tone and voice is calmer here, though with a purpose. To find answers, to find leads and any explanation which could help explain why the Talwars were in the jail, when there was no evidence against them.

For the middle-class families in India who woke up to this news and then the subsequent drama that the media played to no ends on TV, this book, this case can never be judged objectively. For as long as the case will not get solved, which it may never be, and as long as the Talwars are left to pay for the crime they never did, there will be no closure for anyone. It has left all of us vulnerable.

The book provides many pieces of information or rather I should say works at pointing out the facts clearly so that the notions and misinformation that was floated around by the police and the media all these years could stand corrected. For everyone who believed that the Talwars are innocent it is an anguishing read but at the same time for the first time you understand how and where things went wrong. For those who believe in their guilt, read this and question yourself hard about every aspect and then make up your mind as to which side you stand on.

On a more clinical note, the pace of the book is quick, emotions run high and more importantly it is a simple read without over complicating the stuff. It easily talks to the reader.

[Nivethitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether you love crime stories and legal drama or not , this is a must read if not for anything but for how the legal system can fail ordinary citizens . What happened to Talwars was a travesty of justice . This book clearly calls out the multiple ways in which the investigation was botched up and the depths to which government agencies will go to hold up their reputation and egos . If the investigation makes you lose trust in the system , the trial , the prosecution lawyers, judges, and the high courts will make you wonder how such people managed to secure powerful positions . It was a very informative read on one of the most popular murder cases and trial in the last decade . But be prepare to be let down and very scared about how trial by media and a corrupt and inefficient system can take away a person's freedom.

[Aman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Good account of everything that can go wrong in the investigative, judicial, and extrajudicial aspects of our criminal justice system. The author's bold skepticism, attention to contradictions, and extensive interviewing betrays noteworthy sensitivity to the Rashomon effect. I picked this up after reading two spicy journalistic accounts (Too Big To Fail, Bottle of Lies), and the narrative of this book often felt monotonous in comparison. Then again, too much legal stuff is always monotonous. In any case, the book kept presenting enough institutional, strategic, behavioural, and behind-the-scenes insights, and salvaged itself from becoming just another a case account.

The third and concluding segment, Dasna Diaries, is perhaps the most engaging portion. It presents excerpts from Rajesh Talwar's prison diaries as well as interviews of key characters (including the trial judge) after the trial had completed. It does a great job of giving the book itself a sense of closure, even while arguing that the Aarushi-Hemraj case should be treated as anything but closed.

[Sisyphus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this one up with huge expectations. Sen is a gifted writer. My introduction to him as a writer was that Open piece where he recounts his days at NewsX. The book has the same easy flow of narrative and delves deep into the dramatis personae. However, there was quite a bit lacking as well. Sen starts over from the primary evidence collected by the police and the CBI, and traces how things got bungled up eventually. So far, so good. But as various reviews (particularly, the one in Fountain Ink) have pointed out, he does seem to be going easy on the Talwars. The thoroughness with which he examines Krishna and Rajkumar, or the way he goes into the history of Kaul and Shyam Lal, is absent when dealing with the Talwars. He offers no reason for the CBI to maliciously go after the couple the way he says the agency did. It is unclear throughout the book what the CBI (or indeed, the individual officers) had to gain from framing the Talwars. Their connections with key people in the forensic laboratory and even the police is not made much of. The book reveals as much as it hides.

PS: After I had finished reading the book, I read about the panel discussion at the book's launch where Sen was patently rude to Ellen Barry who had been less than charitable in her review of the book. That kind of cheesed me off, post-facto.

[MissUnderstoodGenius · Rating 3 out of 5]

In all truth, I didn't much follow the Aarushi murder case. The social media has been buzzing with views, opinions and questions ever since Aarushi was murdered. This book was an intriguing read for me because it simply stated the facts and examined the course of the investigation. As a common (wo)man, it was hard for me to comprehend the nuances published in the newspaper and every news channel seems to be contradicting each other.

To an interview question "Q. If the Talwars didn't do it, then who did?", to which the author has poignantly answered "The facts are there in the book. Read it and make up your mind." If the facts stated in the book are so easy to concur for common (wo)man by simply reading the book, the author should have filed a petition as the universal question "Who killed Aarushi" still is unanswered, or is mocking at the Indian judiciary.

Would I recommend it?
By all means, if you are interested in knowing about the murder case.

[Dhiraj Meena · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am making an undesired assumption that every thing this book says is at least factually correct. Even if some of it isn't, my opinion won't differ significantly.............
Avirook Sen right puts it beautifully....'this case is all about what India looks like from ground'
First of all....its a piece of work which deserves lots of praise.....to collate some much of info from as many diverse, often hostile, sources is worthy of an award, to say the least...!!
this if what i felt after reading this ....our 'sarkari' system is rotten beyond comprehension.......'truth' is the last thing anybody wants to unearth.........'prejudice' is the biggest hurdle towards justice and please...please......give this book a read.......if you feel 'justice' has been served in the case of 2008 double murders....!!
and last but not the least 'FUCK U' A.G.L. KAUL......!!

[Varsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was 15 years old (just a year older than Aarushi was then) when the ghastly Aarushi- Hemraj murders took place and had absolutely no understanding of how the criminal justice system worked. My information of the case, at the time, was entirely based on what I read in the newspapers and as the story stopped making page 1 headlines and was relegated to an inconspicuous column in the annals of a 23 page daily, I quickly lost interest.

Six years later, I read this book as a qualified lawyer, with a complete understanding of the nuances of criminal procedure and my indignation and horror only increased with every page. At the outset though, the author must be commended for presenting an honest and unbiased view of the matter (well, if the allegations against the CBI were untrue, the work would be libellous and it is unlikely that the author will get off defaming one of the most glorified public offices of the country)

As I read through the book, I lost count of the number of times procedure was flouted, the number of times the fundamental right of the accused to a fair trial was infringed, the number of times the chain of circumstances was broken, the number of times the law was blatantly disregarded and the number of absurdities relied upon to make a 'watertight' case against the accused. The Aarushi trial is nothing but a game of egos, the CBI not wanting to admit to a botched up investigation, desperately wanting to emerge victorious from this sensational case, not caring about justice or the law. However, the absolute winner has to be the judge writing his judgement before the defence counsel even began his final arguments- because naturally, it would take quite some time to sit with a thesaurus and fill in the blanks with useless verbiage.

I have watched Bollywood movies that have adhered to the law better than the participants of this trial.

Few books have affected me as much as this one has. Few books have been as difficult to read as this one has. We may never know who committed the crimes, we may not even conclusively know if the Talwars are innocent or guilty but what has happened to them should not have happened in the manner that it happened.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The whole book reads like one long hastily written article in the Times of India. The Aarushi Talvar (a regular middle class Indian teenage girl) murder case caught the imagination of the Indian nation. Her dentist parents were found guilty of the murder. They are now serving sentences in jail. Many prominent personalities like the British writer Patrick French (who was a patient at the Talvar's clinic) and noted journalists came to the Talvar's defense on TV and the print media. Avirook Sen's investigations revealed that the Indian police and the CBI (Cental Bureau of Investigations) were utterly incompetent and biased against the Talvar's. They had evidence that Aarushi might have been murdered by the friends of the Talvar's servant (who lived with the Talvar's in their flat). Sen argues that the media frenzy that followed the murder might have had an impact on the public perception and police investigation.

This true crime book is almost like a one sided defense of the Talvar's. I wish Avirook had worked harder on explaining the milieu and focused on character development. Instead, we are fed with an avalanche of details about the case, all of which makes the police and the CBI look like complete morons. This was a great opportunity to comment on the callousness and cruelty of the Indian justice system and the huge class divide between urban and small town India. I bet this book scared the shit out of the middle class readers for whom it is written. It certainly scared the hell out of me. But I stopped reading after a while because Sen's prose was unendurable. He seems to have adopted a deliberately simplistic style that would appeal to the masses who are looking for a quick read. I have seen his interviews and he always struck me as a pretty intelligent guy. But I guess he had to sell books. He is no Truman Capote or Norman Mailer. Not even an Ann Rule.

The problem with "Aarushi" is that it is more of a defense of the Talvar's rather than a well written true crime book.

[Neha Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

"पूरी सच्चाई एक विलासिता है।अगर आप इसकी तलाश में हैं तो अदालत का कक्ष ऐसी जगह नहीं है,जहां से इस तलाश की शुरुवात या अंत किया जाए।अदालत तो सिर्फ यही करती है कि कोई कहानी जितनी तरह से सुनाई जा सकती है,उस संख्या को दो तक सीमित कर देती है:संभव या असंभव।इस सीमा से चयन आसान हो जाता है,लेकिन सच्चाई नहीं।" अविरूक सेन ने इस क़िताब में आरुषि मर्डर केस को पूरी तरह समेटा है..कहा जा सकता है कि जाँच और न्यायिक प्रक्रिया का सिलसिलेवार ब्यौरा उपलब्ध कराया है,साथ ही ऐसी कई बातें भी सामने रखी गई हैं जो मीडिया ने इतने दिन विस्तार से कवरेज करने के बाद भी कभी सामने नहीं रखी।कई ऐसे गवाहों और सबूतों का भी ज़िक्र किया गया है,जिन पर ध्यान ही नहीं दिया गया।विस्तार से लिखी गई ये क़िताब कई बार अदालती मुक़दमे की तरह लंबी और बोझिल लगने लगती है..शायद ये इस बात की पुष्टि करता है कि लेखक द्वारा पूरी प्रक्रिया सच्चाई से सामने रखने की कोशिश की गई है।

[Vidya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a sad morbid tale this is. A telling tale of how pathetic our justice system is and how desperately it needs a complete overhaul. It's the tale of parents who are running from pillar to post screaming their innocence.

The author though tries to be unbiased in telling this story, obviously is siding with the parents and rightfully so. The evidence that was hushed up, the evidence that was changed, the evidence that was never collected all point to their innocence and yet court after court held otherwise.

Just goes to prove when things have to go wrong they will.

Do read this book.

[Debby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chilling read of, once what I thought to be a "sensational" case, turned out to be a harrowing experience of how twisted the judicial system can be. A teenager who still has no peace even after dying, parents who still hope for a miracle to shatter the false accusations thrown on them, indeed makes it an emotional experience of reading. The author certainly has done painstaking research, showing how India is from the ground!

[Hiran Venugopalan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sharp, detailed, clean, no-shit no fiction note on Nodia Double murder case.

[Anindya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by a journalist, you would expect that the account would be impartial. It is not. The tone is clearly sympathetic to the convicted Talwars. But it is also evident that the investigating agency and the judge were perversely biased against them. Bias of a journalist is of measure zero when compared to the bias of a system that is supposed to deliver justice to a nation of over a billion.
I would have liked the book better if Sen had been completely objective and impartial in his iteration of the events that transpired between the fateful night of June 2008 and now (the time of publication of the book). But somewhere down the line I became convinced that this tone was required. Sometimes you have to exaggerate to get your point across, especially when the voice of reason doesn't get entertained in a court of law. Avirook Sen has taken the liberty to do just that and has put in excessive stress on the Talwars' narrative (which is way more plausible than the one CBI presented, rife with insinuations and speculations). The chinks (way less in number than the ones in CBI's) in the defence's argument were underplayed. In an ideal world he should have avoided that. However, the world we live in, where the Kauls and the Shyam Lals and the Dohares and the Dahiyas hold the mantle of justice, is far from being ideal.

[P A Sivachander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avirook Sen has taken painstaking attempt to cast light on the infamous Aarushi - Hemraj case which became a sensation in the year 2008 thanks to the media. this book is a must read for everyone who ought to know the current situation of our age old jurisdiction system. the one thing the author has tried to instill in our minds is that the Talwars are not guilty. I too have come to a partial conclusion that they are not guilty too. this book displays how careless investigations of the case took place. the most simple pieces of evidences were disregarded as being non admissible. this is a case which in no way can produce a verdict with all the evidences obtained yet. but how clever our justice would have been to come go a verdict even with those minimalistic clues!! it shows how cleverly the CBI rendered the witnesses' statements to force any reader to get convinced that only the Talwars would have done this brutal double killing. all I wish is that the case is reopened and a thorough investigation is done (atleast this time) so that the culprit who I believe is still out there running freely gets the conviction and the innocents let free to go. A great work Sen. it's now time for the country to make sure this happens.

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely watch the movie before the book on a subject. But in this case I watched the movie Talvar before reading this book. Should you read the book if you have watched the movie already - I certainly recommend it.

Avirook Sen's book Aarushi is filled with facts, and also has very good analysis. The sad part of course is other than the bungling in the initial stages of the investigation, is the determination of the CBI second team to pursue a line of thought even if the evidence is not quite there. Alarming is the attempt to align witnesses who change/enhance their testimonies and also other evidences are all tailored to achieve an outcome. This reminds me of John Grisham's "Innocent man" which is also based on a true story. Sometimes select law enforcement people can take the entire system along based on a gut feel of who is guilty. There is also the close scrutiny from the press and people, who want the case solved.

A sad reflection of the systems and processes in place. A read I strongly recommend.....

[Dilshad · Rating 5 out of 5]

'This case is all about what India looks like from the ground' - Avirook Sen.

The infamous murders of Aarushi and Hemraj wrecked havoc in the lives of the Talwars.

Avirook Sen, without personal bias or assumptions, painstakingly documents the events that followed the incident and the harrowing experiences faced by the Talwars who were convicted of murdering their daughter and servant, seven years ago.

A case sensationalized by the unscrupulous media, highlights the utter depraved state of the judiciary and the perverse mentality of a large section of society.

Such is the state of affairs of this apathetic place where the innocent are convicted of killing their own child, where manipulation of crucial information by an alleged "premier law enforcement agency" is rampant and on the other hand innumerable degenerate rapists are allowed to walk free.

This is a difficult read, leaving one indignant and despairing at the thought of this gross injustice.

[Tushar Kulkarni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic case study of what happens when media, bureaucracy and judiciary creates one impression in mind and act accordingly. This book doesn't give an answer of murder mystery but shows what factors lead to the conclusion. If you are thinking why should I read this book if already movie is released then you are right. No need to read this book but if you want to know how investigation done and how was court trial in this particular case then it is definitely good read. The book is divided into three parts a) investigation, B) trial c) Dasna Diaries (Talwars in Dasna Jail). One will find some part of the book is repetitive but story revolves around one incident that's why I think it is inevitable. Writer has done tremendous work on the book. He has interviewed hundreds of people related with the case and referred thousands of pages of various documents.

[Read With Taran · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one point I had lost faith in Indian authors then I came across this. Engaging and gripping as it is, the novel gives a deeper and unbiased view on the infamous Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case.

This novel is not a regular Whodunit novel. It's more about who has not done it. It depicts the sorry state the CBI and the judiciary is in. A story of fabricated evidences and stories spun around it. The book gives unbiased accounts of everyone involved in the investigation and trial. It also depicts the dismal state of the media and how they can spin stories of their own for TV ratings.

I leave it to you to judge to what extent the facts are right or wrong. However, it is a well written, well structured and well researched book in my opinion

[Nisha Agarwal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not into reading thrillers, but because Arushi-Hemraj murder case was a high profile Indian case which left almost every Indian question about the law & order in the country and also about the society we live in, i HAD to read it. The cover itself is very heartbreaking, blood splattered all over and covered with plastic to make it more appealing, it hurt! And the story hurts too. Avirook sen has done an excellent job in bringing out the minute details of the investigations, trials and the Dasna stories that continued after the trials. Obviously the verdict has been done, but the validity of it still stays challenged and it is still left on to people who they think must have done the crime. I found my answers, read it to decide yours!

[Sharmilee Patel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are crimes that are quite simple to open up. There are crimes that are difficult to open up and there are some crimes that are in between that never get opened up even if they are simple cases. This is one of those."
~ Vijay Shankar, Former CBI director (From Aarushi by Avirook Sen)

Simply awesome book on much discussed Arushi -Hemraj double murder case. All points are very well portrayed.

[Tushar Joneja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very rarely does one come across a book that elicits strong physical responses from the reader. I implore every Indian to read this book, not just for the facts it presents about the case, but also for its deep and oft disturbing insights into the ways of our country. This story could just as well have been mine or yours. I just wish it never, ever comes to that. #JusticeForAarushi

[Aakshey Talwar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheds some light on the conspiracy by the beaurocracy against the innocent family.

The conspiracy by the beaurocracy, government and the media has been really deep at every level and all of them have been working hand in glove to please the other's butt. Nevertheless, this book does shed some light on the truth and proves the innocence of the family.

[GRV · Rating 3 out of 5]

AARUSHI

Rating 3/5

The book is divided into three parts

1.Investigation

2.Trial

3.Dasna Diaries

1st & 3rd parts are good.

Felt little bit bored in the middle of part 2 with unnecessary details of characters.

Other than that worth reading about the real incidents.

[Ashok Rajagopal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not criticising the form or the content of the book. I am criticising the intention of the book. It is every bit the same that it intends to accuse the system of - biased , judgmental and not allowing for reasonable doubt.

[Swathi Chatrapathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just one thing to say - Don't ever trust the Indian judiciary.
Very well written book. It is to the point and as factual as can get. Kudos to Avirook's investigative journalism skills.