New Delhi, Sep 9 - The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is forming a new team to probe the sensational murders of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and her family's domestic help Hemraj last year, the agency announced Wednesday, days after reports said the vaginal swabs of the teenager may have been substituted.

'A new team is being formed to probe the Aarushi murder case,' CBI spokesman Harsh Bhal told IANS.

Bhal said CBI Deputy Inspector General 'Arun Kumar (who was leading the probe) is completing his term in October. Arun Kumar has sought early repatriation (to Uttar Pradesh) and that is why the new team will be formed before his term ends'.

The new team is being formed 17 months after Aarushi was found murdered in her parents' Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida May 16 last year. The family's domestic help Hemraj was found murdered a day later on the terrace of the house. The case has remained an unsolved riddle.

On Sep 5, IANS reported that Kumar has been asked to return to his home state following poor handling of the sensational double murder case. The decision follows the startling reports of a surreptitious replacement of Aarushi's vaginal swabs with another women's.

Kumar, a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, was on deputation to the CBI.

Earlier on Wednesday, the CBI maintained it had known 'for eight months' that the vaginal swabs of Aarushi may have been substituted and that it was probing the tampering of evidence.

'Our investigators have been following this angle for the last eight months and will soon file a status report in the Supreme Court,' Bhal said, when asked about the DNA sample of the teenaged victim reportedly being changed with that of an unidentified woman.