The law says that a person is presumed innocent until pronounced guilty. While there are sound moral and ethical grounds for that approach, there is another aspect to this approach that cannot be ignored. This is to do with policing in this country. In the context of India and the brouhaha that has risen with the double brutal murders of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and the family help Hemraj, this is an aspect that must be underscored to make our cities safer.

Because a person is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the onus is on the police to get the evidence first before they focus on pronouncing him or her guilty. To do that, they have to adopt better policing, sharper investigation skills, better technology and a mind that is tuned into cracking difficult cases quickly.

Unfortunately, when it came to the Noida police, they failed on almost every count. Consider this:

• When Aarushi's murder was first detected, the police immediately accepted and announced that Hemraj could have been the killer. While one can not fault the police in chasing a lead, what one can find fault with is their inability to keep other options open. This led them to completely ignore the immediate terrace above the Talwars' flat where Hemraj's body was rapidly decomposing in the May heat.

• When the Talwar family decided to take out Aarushi's blood soaked mattress, they took it upstairs to the terrace. (The police cite the removal of the mattress as "suspicious behavior" on part of the Talwars. The family claims that they removed it with the permission of the police). The family found their door to their terrace locked and the keys couldn't be found. Since the Talwars had also been locked in on the night of the double murder, why didn't the loss of the terrace key raise an alarm? So the mattress was dumped on the neighbor's terrace while the police continued to blissfully ignore the Talwar terrace. Classic police investigative methods suggest that you check out each and every square inch of the scene of crime in the hope that you can recover vital clues as well as the murder weapon. But the terrace remained out of bounds for the police. Much later, the Noida police suspended a police inspector but the damage was already done.

• Calling a press conference where the inspector general of police, Gurdarshan Singh, used language that was full of innuendo and crude references to the murdered victims displayed a dismal lack of good police procedure. When you arrest a person, you never discuss motives and evidence with the media and the public at large. Even if you must, then it must be done through off-the-record briefings and, as investigators, you must have the option of deniability. But Singh forgot all that when he pronounced Aarushi's father as the killer, gave away clues and leads which can now aid the defence lawyers, and also created huge doubts in the minds of the public. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that Dr Rajesh Talwar is innocent. Then, the real killers must be quite happy to see the police make such fools of themselves to chase the wrong lead and then announce it to the world. For the killers this is a sure indication that they will not be caught. Which means, they could be planning the next murder and also factoring in the goof ups made by the police in the present case to cover their tracks better.

• Why didn't the police photograph the scene of crime as well as film it? Every police station in Noida has been given a budget to buy still as well as digital video cameras to film the scene of crime. This ensures that even if the circumstances of the scene of crime are changed, then they will still have some record of it to reconstruct the crime and draw inferences from them. If reports are to be believed, then the local police did not do this.

• When Gurdarshan Singh held his press conference, Dr Talwar had just been arrested. But the courts had not granted a police custody to the Noida police, which means that they had not got the opportunity to interrogate him after formally arresting him. So far they had only questioned him but had not confronted him with the available clues or evidence (if any), which is vital for standard police investigation. Instead, as Dr Talwar was sent to jail by the court, Singh was busy airing his theory but forgot that they were yet to question the man they had publicly accused of a brutal double murder.

• The police have also ignored the fact that Dr Talwar is a chronic asthmatic patient. Can such a man, used to a sedentary life, brutally murder his daughter by bludgeoning her face with a "blunt instrument" and then convince Hemraj to come up with him to the terrace and then kill him too? All within a space of less than an hour? The police would like to believe so, but the post mortem report doesn't encourage their theory a lot. There is no sign of any resistance put up by either Hemraj or Aarushi. In fact, Hemraj went to the terrace quite willingly. And he was killed when he was hit on the back of his head. Their throats were slit after the blows had already killed them. This means there were at least two killers; one to distract Hemraj while the other one delivered the fatal blow from behind.

• The police found a bottle of whisky and three glasses in Hemraj's room. Most important, the toilet in Hemraj's room was full of urine. This means that some people were drinking and had used the toilet extensively. Did this open up any new angles for the police? Did they start examining Hemraj's telephone records and have they brought in his associates for questioning, chasing a parallel track of investigation while they continue with their current theory of Dr Talwar being the killer?

That said, here's my two-bit take on the possible theory or theories on who could have killed the two unfortunate victims. What we do know is the following:

• Either Hemraj or Aarushi knew the killer or killers. This is based on the fact that Hemraj went up to the terrace willingly with the killers. Also, the main door to the Talwar residence or the door to the terrace above their flat have no signs of a forced entry. My bet is that it was Hemraj and not Aarushi who knew the killers. This also explains their easy access into the house and also finding the keys to lock up the terrace as well as the house after they murdered the two victims and left.
  
• The post mortem clearly says that the two victims were killed in a most brutal fashion. Their heads were smashed in, fracturing the skulls at several places, even though the skull bones are the toughest in the human body. The report says an instrument that was at least four inches thick and eight inches long was used to repeatedly badger both the victims. That sounds like a khukri, which could have been used for killing the victims before their throats were slit. The throats were cut so deeply that their heads were barely attached to the necks. The police have accepted that either a surgeon or a butcher could have cut their throats. Sacrificing animals during festivals in a common practice in Nepal and the khukri is easily available to a Nepali.

These are but just theories that come to mind and, at best, offer leads that could be used to crack the case. Perhaps Hemraj was part of a larger conspiracy and events spiraled out of control that fateful night resulting in the deaths of not only Aarushi but also Hemraj. Perhaps the killers knew Aarushi and on her word, were let into the apartment by Hemraj, which proved to be his undoing. But as theories, they need to be explored quickly and effectively by the police.

But if you forget good police procedure, assume that a man is guilty even before you gather adequate evidence, and then announce your conjecture and speculation to the media, it does not inspire confidence. Perhaps the Noida police will finally crack the case and successfully prosecute the real killer. But the kind of attitude and interpretive skills they have shown while submitting innocuous emails and chat records recovered from Aarushi's computer makes one more than sceptical about their abilities to do so . Figuring out a possible motive for the murder is all very right, but where is the actual, hard circumstantial evidence that will clinch the case? Therein hangs a tale.