The accused pinpointed the areas where he had thrown the body parts, said police
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Tuesday, November 15, took Aaftab Amin Poonawala, the 28-year-old accused of killing his live-in partner, to the forest area of south Delhi’s Chhatarpur where he had allegedly dumped her body parts, a report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
Poonawala allegedly strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar in May, sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi’s Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days.
“The crime scene was recreated to understand and ascertain the sequence of events that led to the crime and how he managed to avoid any attention while disposing off the body parts” a senior police official said.
The police is also likely to approach authorities at online dating app Bumble through which both the accused and victim met.
“We want to access his account to analyse his profile and know how many women he was in contact with and screen the chats to understand his psyche”, the official further said.
Police officials are also trying to get in touch with the accused’s friends and will probe whether he was in relationship with multiple women after killing Walkar or he was cheating on her when they were together.
Details of the killing and its gruesome aftermath came to light during his interrogation last week following which Poonawala, a resident of Vasai in West Mumbai, was arrested in the early hours of Saturday, November 12.
Poonawala told the police during investigation that he killed his live-in partner after a quarrel over marriage and the idea of chopping her body into 35 pieces was inspired by “Dexter”, an American crime TV series.
According to the accused, he bought the fridge to preserve the body parts and would step out past midnight to dispose them off. He meticulously planned which parts had to ones to dispose of first depending upon how quickly they start decomposing
Police officials, said 13 body parts were found after the accused pinpointed the areas where he had thrown them, but only after a forensic examination, will it be possiible to cconfirm if they belonged to the victim.
They are yet to find the murder weapon.
After meeting through the online dating app, Poonawala and Walkar later started working for the same call centre in Mumbai and fell in love. But their families objected to the relationship as they belong to different faiths, prompting the couple to move to Mehrauli earlier this year.
“Around mid-May, the couple had an argument over marriage, which escalated and Poonawala killed her,” Ankit Chauhan, Additional DCP-I, South district, had said.
On November 8, Mumbai Police reported at Mehrauli police station regarding the missing woman. During the investigation, a raid was conducted at Poonawala’s residence and he was detained.
Poonawala has been remanded in five-day police custody.
Father demands death penalty for Aaftab
Shraddha Walker father has demanded the death penalty for the accused while also suspecting a “love jihad” angle behind the incident.
Speaking to ANI, Shraddha’s father, Vikas Walker, said, “I suspected a love jihad angle. We demand the death penalty for Aaftab. I trust Delhi Police and the probe moving in the right direction. Shraddha was close to her uncle and didn’t talk to me much. I was never in touch with Aaftab. I lodged the first complaint in Mumbai’s Vasai.”
Delhi Police probe into the Shraddha Walker murder case has revealed that the accused Aaftab Poonawalla was a food blogger who used to work at a call centre in the national capital.
According to police sources, before shifting to Delhi in 2022, the couple had developed a relationship in 2019. They stayed in Maharashtra for some time.
The police, the couple had gone to hill stations in March-April. Both had travelled to Himachal Pradesh for a few days in May and stayed together. Later, Aaftab rented a flat in Chhatarpur where he shifted with Shraddha. She was reportedly strangled to death on May 18 in the Chhatarpur flat.
The police have ascertained that the room was taken on rent just a few days before the murder.
“It is also a matter of investigation whether Aaftab had already hatched a conspiracy to kill her,” the police sources said.
The accused told the police during interrogation that he used to take the pieces of the dead body to the disposal at 2:00 am due to the little movement of people at this hour.
.”It is learned that after the murder, Aaftab used to come back home by 6-7 pm and then used to take the pieces of the dead body kept in the fridge there for disposal. The accused used to carry the pieces of the carcass in a black foil but had thrown the pieces out of the foil in the forest, making it difficult to ascertain if the pieces were thrown or the remains were due to animal hunting,” the sources said.
Officials said that Shraddha Walker (27) from Mumbai, met the Aaftab while working at a call center in Mumbai.
“The two got together via a dating app in Mumbai. They were in a live-in relationship for three years and had shifted to Delhi. Soon after the two shifted to Delhi, Shraddha started pressurising the man to marry her,” Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South Delhi Ankit Chauhan told ANI.
“The two quarreled frequently and it used to get out of control. In this particular instance that occurred on May 18, the man lost his temper and strangled her,” said Chouhan.
In November, Shraddha’s father Vikash Madan Walker, a resident of Palghar (Maharashtra), approached Mumbai police and lodged a missing person complaint.
During the initial investigation, Shraddha’s last location was found in Delhi, and on the basis of this, the case was transferred to Delhi police.
Shraddha’s father told the police about his daughter’s relationship with Aaftab and suspected his involvement in his daughter’s absence.
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