On Thursday, the Delhi Police investigating the Shraddha Walkar murder case revealed that accused Aftab who murdered his live-in partner and then chopped her into 35 pieces had fought with her over household expenses. Aftab and Shraddha from Maharashtra had been living in a rented apartment in Delhi.
The duo shifted to Delhi on May 15, three days before Aftab strangled the woman to death. The Police indicated that the duo was not in a healthy relationship and used to fight a lot. On May 18 also, the duo engaged in a fight over who’d pay for household expenses that led to Aftab murdering Shraddha in a very brutal manner.
Aftab confessed to the Delhi Police during interrogation that they had shifted from Mumbai to Delhi and had stayed in a hotel initially. Then the duo rented an apartment and soon engaged in a quarrel over shifting the household material from Mumbai to Delhi and also over maintaining the household expenses in Delhi. Aftab said that this was not the first time that they had engaged in a fight and that they had been fighting frequently over several other issues.
The Police also confirmed that the accused murdered the woman between 8 pm to 10 pm and chopped her body into 35 pieces. He later stored the severed body parts in a refrigerator and disposed of the pieces in Delhi’s Mehrauli forest over the next 18 days. As reported earlier, the accused had kept Shraddha’s dead body in the same apartment after the murder until the next day when he especially bought a knife and refrigerator to chop and cold store her body parts.
Delhi Police caught Aftab lying during interrogation
Aftab made all possible attempts to make Shraddha’s friends and relatives believe that she was fine, active, and alive after he murdered the woman. He paid all her credit card dues and also engaged in fake conversations with her friends through Instagram for a month or two. Later, Shraddha’s father and her friends began searching for her after they failed to get social media updates from her account.
Shraddha’s father also lodged a missing report after which the Delhi Police began an investigation in the case. Initially, accused Aftab tried to mislead the police investigation as he said that Shraddha had left the apartment on May 22 after they had a massive fight. He also said that she had just taken her cell phone with her and that all her other belongings were still at the apartment.
According to the Police, the accused Aftab was speaking lies and that itself helped the Delhi Police to crack down on the six-month-old murder case. Aftab was called for interrogation on October 26 during which he reiterated that Shraddha had left the apartment on May 22. It was later discovered that she had been murdered 4 days ago.
Based on Aftab’s interrogation, the Delhi Police tracked Shraddha’s phone location and found out that her phone was in the Mehrauli area of Delhi where the duo had rented an apartment to stay together. The Police also discovered that Rs 54,000 had been transferred from Shraddha Walkar’s account to Aftab Poonawala’s bank account using the banking app on her phone between May 22 and 26. This raised concerns because the accused had told the cops that he hadn’t spoken to her since she departed on May 22.
He was detained again earlier this month after he informed the authorities that he had made the bank transactions because he knew her passwords. He also said that he’d been paying her credit card bills, so bank authorities wouldn’t go to her Mumbai house. The Police detained him and asked one crucial question which exposed the accused- “If she had left him on May 22, how was her phone location still in Mehrauli?” Aftab Poonawala then broke down and narrated the entire story.
Shraddha Walkar murder case
On November 14, the Delhi Police solved the six-month-old murder case of Shraddha Walkar and arrested Aftab Poonawala for murdering her, and then chopping her into 35 pieces to dispose of her body. Aftab executed the murder on May 18 and stored her body parts in the refrigerator. He then disposed of the body pieces in Delhi’s Mehrauli forest during the next 18 days.
The accused was arrested based on the complaint filed by Shraddha’s father on November 10. He stated in the complaint that the accused and the deceased had rented an apartment in Delhi and were staying in an unhealthy live-in relationship, which was also abusive. He said that he had always opposed their relationship as Aftab is a Muslim.
The girl, a resident of Palghar was adamant about continuing her relationship with accused Aftab and shifted to Delhi with him. Three days after they shifted to Delhi, they engaged in a quarrel and Aftab happened to kill Shraddha. He confessed his crime on November 14 and stated that they used to fight a lot. He said that he murdered Shraddha on May 18 as she was forcing him to get married to her.
The accused has been arrested and a case under IPC section 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offense committed) have been registered. Further investigations into the case are underway.
