In a shocking revelation, in the Shraddha Walker murder case, the Delhi Police on Monday stated that the accused identified as Aftab Amin Poonawalla had searched on the internet for the method to clean the blood after murdering his live-in partner and that he had read about human anatomy before chopping her body into 35 small pieces.
The Delhi Police solved a six-month-old murder case and arrested the accused for murdering his 28-year-old live-in partner. The police interrogated Aftab during which he confessed that he had read about human anatomy before chopping the woman into 35 pieces. They seized his electronic devices to verify that the accused googled about methods to clean the blood stains after executing the murder on May 18 this year.
The police further said that the accused had specially purchased a refrigerator to store 35 pieces of Shraddha’s dead body. Later he began disposing off the body parts at different locations in and around Delhi during the night hours for the next 18 days. Aftab stayed in the same room where he had murdered the woman and used to look at the face of the woman that he had chopped off and kept in the refrigerator. According to the police, the accused also cleaned the fridge after disposing of the body parts in various parts of Delhi.
The accused was arrested by the police on Monday in the brutal murder case. He was arrested based on the complaint lodged by Shraddha’s father on November 10. Aftab and Shraddha met and began dating while working at a call center in Mumbai. After her family disapproved of their relationship, the pair eloped to Delhi and began living together.
Meanwhile, Shraddha’s family would monitor her posts on social media to see how she was doing. Shraddha’s father got worried on failing to get any updates about his daughter from her social media account for a long time. He was also informed by some of her friends that she was not seen around for a long time.
After this, Shraddha’s father who is a resident of the Palghar district of Maharashtra, reached Delhi to look for his daughter. Later he complained to the Delhi Police after she remained untraceable in the city. He said that his daughter used to work at a call center in Mumbai, where she met a man named Aftab and had a close relationship with him. Both of them had begun to like each other, but her family was not pleased. According to the police, his daughter and Aftab left Mumbai and moved to Delhi, where they settled in the Chhatarpur area.
Aftab and Shraddha shared an acrimonious relationship, routinely fought with each other
Following the father’s complaint, the Delhi Police launched an investigation and eventually apprehended Aftab using technical surveillance. The accused during the interrogation confessed to the crime and said that they shifted to Delhi by April-end or May first week after facing opposition from their families. He also said that they used to have regular fights during their relationship.
The duo suspected each other of cheating and often asked for GPS details and photographs of the surroundings. To make their relationship better, they also had planned a trip to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in April this year. It is after the trip that they decided to move to Delhi.
However, on May 18, three days after they shifted to Delhi, they again got into a fight which concluded in Shraddha’s death this time. “We suspect the woman was shouting or screaming during the fight, and the man tried to silence her by strangling and overpowering her. She died during the struggle,” said Additional DCP (South) Ankit Chauhan.
Aftab kept changing statements, his past job as a chef helped in chopping Shraddha’s body: Delhi Police
The police also said that the accused kept on changing his statements during the interrogation. Earlier he had told the police that the duo had an argument and Shraddha had left him after they fought. “In May 2022, we argued. Shraddha left and since then, I don’t know her whereabouts,” police quoted Aaftab as saying during the interrogation. Later, however, he happened to confess the crime of killing her.
Reports also mention that the accused had earlier worked as a chef in a Mumbai-based restaurant. During the chef training, he was taught how to cut meat into small pieces and preserve them in refrigeration. The job had also taught him tips and tricks to maintain cleanliness after chopping the meat. According to the police, Aftab’s former job as a chef helped him in clinically chopping Shraddha’s dead body into 35 pieces.
Aftab influenced by Hollywood thrillers and Dexter web-series to conceal evidence
The police also stated that the accused was influenced by Hollywood thriller movies and web series which helped him in concealing the evidence for almost three months. “Recently he had watched a web series named Dexter. This probably helped him make a plan to execute the murder and hide the evidence”, the police said. As reported earlier, the accused also entertained other women after he murdered Shraddha. He had installed the dating App Bumble shortly after the murder and hosted another woman who was a psychologist by profession. She visited his house a couple of times in June and July when Shraddha’s body parts were still in the fridge and the kitchen.
Though the police have nabbed the accused and has sent him to five-day remand, the weapon with which Aftab severed Shraddha’s dead body is yet to be recovered. The accused has been arrested and a case under IPC section 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence committed) has been registered. Further investigations in the case are underway.
