Rajesh Talwar with wife Nupur and daughter Aarushi. (File Photo)
Rajesh Talwar, who has been found guilty with his wife of murdering their teen daughter Aarushi, says he has been paraded for VIP visitors at the jail in Uttar Pradesh where he has been incarcerated since November 25, 2013.
"Met with the Law Mantri since Deputy Jailer had called me there. Felt like some sort of an animal in a zoo whom people want to see," Mr Talwar
records in a diary that he began maintaining on the day that his wife and he were sentenced to life in prison in 2013. "Some people and Parminder Awana, the cricketer [of the IPL's Kings XI Punjab], came. They were made to meet me, really don't know why. How am I supposed to react?" he asks.
The brown spiral notebook has entries from Mr Talwar till January 2014. Entries from the diary are part of a new book by journalist Avirook Sen called
Aarushi, which investigates the 13-year-old's killing and a case that left India aghast and divided over the role of her parents.
The CBI, which has investigated the case, said in court in December 2010 that it had no evidence against the Talwars. But the judge hearing the case refused to allow the investigation to be dropped, and Aarushi's parents were eventually convicted in 2013.
Though they challenged the verdict soon after, two years later, appeal has yet to be heard .
Aarushi was discovered with her throat slit and head injuries in her bed just days before she turned 14. Hours later, the main suspect, the Talwars' missing domestic help Hemraj, was found dead on the terrace of their apartment building.
Investigators say nobody broke into the Talwars' home and it was an insider job. But they also said that they did not have evidence to prove who did it or what was the motive. The book traces how despite the closure report, during the course of the trial, the prosecution conclusively states that the parents did it because Hemraj was found with Aarushi having sex in her bedroom.
In his prison diary, Mr Talwar writes,"If only I would have gotten up...I could not even save my dear Aaru."
He also refers to a former minister from Uttar Pradesh, Babu Singh Kushwaha, who is in the same prison after being convicted of corruption. Mr Talwar writes of the politician, who he refers to as "mantriji" (minister). "He's a very good person and it is probably because of him that all of us are in this barrack. Most are worried that if he gets bail, then what happens to us?"
In his diary, Mr Talwar often worries about being moved to prison in Agra (it was being proposed), where he fears officials, who have prejudged his wife and him, will vent their anger against the couple. The transfer, he writes,"will finish us".