Aarushi Talwar

New Delhi, June 6: Sleuths are again scouring the drains of Noida in a murder case, a year and a half after the Nithari killings. This time they are looking not for children’s bones but the weapons that killed schoolgirl Aarushi Talwar, 15, and domestic help Hemraj at her home on May 15 night.

CBI officials today started the hunt armed with clues they claim to have ferreted out of accused Rajesh Talwar, Aarushi’s father, during lie-detector tests.

Helped by local municipal workers, the sleuths scavenged the drains around the Talwars’ Sector 25 house, trying to locate a “heavy object, probably a hammer and a sharp-edged weapon”. The two victims were found with their throats slit.

The CBI also looked into the bushes and the garbage dumps in the Jalvayu Vihar locality after cordoning off the area.

In December 2006, Noida police had fished out skeletons and bones of children from the drains behind the Sector 31 house of Moninder Singh Pandher, who and his servant were accused of serial murders.

Sources said that unless the May 15 murder weapons were found, the case against Rajesh, a dentist, would remain weak.

The CBI is banking heavily on the discovery of the weapons, which would be crucial exhibits, and the forensic reports since they have failed to find any direct evidence against the accused even after two polygraph tests.

An official said the agency also interrogated Rajesh over three days but could not get anything out of the dentist, who is now in 14 days’ judicial custody.

The sleuths are also desperately trying to find the missing mobile phones of Aarushi and Hemraj.

“The pictures in the phones could be important. We have got all the call details from the service providers, but the pictures will be locked up in the phones,” an official said.

The CBI has told the designated court that Rajesh has given a statement, recorded before a police officer, saying he would help the agency find the cellphones.

Sleuths have approached television channels for unedited footage of their coverage of the double murder, especially from the first two to three days.