Ghaziabad: In a new twist in Aarushi-Hemraj murder trial, the Talwars' family driver and CBI witness Umesh Sharma was on Friday declared hostile by the special CBI court.
Special judge S Lal declared Umesh a "hostile witness" on the contention of public prosecutor RK Saini when the driver did not support the CBI's contention based on the evidence collected by the agency during his examination in chief in the court.
He is the first CBI witness in the case who has turned hostile.
The development comes a day after CBI told the court that another prosecution witness, Talwars' maid Kalpana Mandal "is not to be examined" as she has been "won over" by the couple.
Saini said the driver did not support the case as he declined to identify the golf stick 4 and 5, which were allegedly kept by him in servant Hemraj's room.
The CBI, at this juncture, took permission of the court to examine him as a hostile witness. Umesh, in his examination in chief deposed that on May 15, 2008, the day before the teenage was found dead, he saw Rajesh Talwar, his wife Nupur and daughter Aarushi at the house when he handed over the car key to Hemraj.
He also told the court that the next day on May 16, 2008, the police asked him 'where is Hemaj?' for which he said he did not know.
"The same day I cleaned the floor and the door mat in Aarushi's room after the consent of police personnel present at the crime scene," he said.
He told the court that on the day when the two murders took place, Aarushi's room was cleaned at 4.30 PM, and mattress and ice blocks were kept at the roof of neighbouring L-28 because the terrace door of L-32, the house of Talwars in Jalvayu Vihar, was locked.
The keys of the L-28 terrace gate was given by the owner himself.
During the cross examination, he stated before the court that terrace door of the L-32 was never locked before, so when he saw the terrace locked, he was very much surprised.
He did not say that he asked for the keys from Nupur's mother.
Umesh also stated in his deposition that he had put two golf sticks, one bucket with a piece of clean clothe in Hemraj's room from the Santro Car of Rajesh Talwar three four months ago when he got the car serviced.
The hostile witness also told the court that he had earlier at the office of the CBI did not identify the golf stick 3 and 4, which were allegedly kept by him in Hemraj's room.
This, the witness said, was stated in his statement made before the investigating officer (IO) at the CBI office in Delhi.
During cross examination by the CBI prosecutor, the CBI counsel showed Umesh a paper (number 146A) containing his statement recorded by the agency earleir, but he told the court that the statement attributed to him was wrong.
"I did not put the golf sticks in Hemraj's room 15 days before the murder. The statement, written on the paper, was not translated in Hindi that day and I had pain in my ear, so I could not hear properly," he said.
Umesh alleged that CBI officer AGL Kaul had slapped him on the ear at the Delhi CBI office, due to which his ear drum got ruptured and he went to Lok Nayak Hospital for treatment.
He also produced the papers regarding the treatment. He also told the court that he did not tell about the ear pain to the CBI official.
He also deposed before the court that before cleaning Aarushi's room he knew that Aarushi had been murdered. He cleaned the room with Vikash, Kuldeep and Manoj.
After the cross examination by the CBI, Umesh was also cross examined by the defence counsels.
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