Noida: A temple here Sunday organised a prayer for peace of the soul of Aarushi, the teenaged murder victim.

“We organised a shanti havan in the morning, followed by prayers for the peace of Aarushi's soul,” said Rohit Rana, son of Dheeraj Kumar who established the Baba Balaknath Temple in Sector 62 five years ago.

Prayers were followed by a feast for devotees. The temple organises the havan ritual every day and on Sundays it is followed by a feast.

Asked why today's ritual was dedicated to Aarushi, Rana said: “We prayed to Baba Balaknath to give justice to Aarushi, whose character has been assassinated by the Noida police."

“We also prayed to Baba to bless CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) so that they can catch the real killer,” Rana told IANS.

Devotees from Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh participated in the function.

Asked why the victim's family was not invited, Rana said: “We did not want to disturb the family, which is already in grief.”

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered in her parents' Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida May 16. The police initially named her family's domestic help Hemraj as the prime accused but backtracked when his body was found on the roof of the building the next day.

The Noida police arrested Aarushi's father Rajesh Talwar May 23, claiming he killed his daughter in a fit of rage as he objected to her "closeness" with Hemraj.

The CBI took over the case June 1 after a public outcry over the shoddy manner in which the Noida police had investigated the case.

The agency has questioned a number of people but is nowhere near zeroing in on the motive for the crime, the killer or recovering the weapon of murder.
Source : IANS