On May 9, a Delhi Court framed charges of murder and disappearance of evidence against Aftab Amin Poonawala in the Shraddha Walkar Murder case. Poonawala is accused of killing and chopping off Shraddha’s body into pieces. He allegedly kept her dismembered body in a fridge for days and disposed of them over the next few weeks after killing her.
#BREAKING: In Shraddha murder case#Delhi's Saket court directs framing of charges against accused Aftab Amin Poonawala under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (disappearance of evidence) of Indian Penal Code.
— LawBeat (@LawBeatInd) May 9, 2023
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Manisha Khurana Kakkar FRAMES CHARGES… pic.twitter.com/y36WxN5Zdk
Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar of Saket court framed charges against him under Sections 302 (murder) and Section 201 (disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Poonawala has pleaded not guilty and will face trial. The matter has been listed for recording prosecution evidence on June 1, 2023. The court had reserved an order on framing charges in April 2023.
Accused Aftab Amin Poonawala denies the charges against him and is ready to face the trial.
— LawBeat (@LawBeatInd) May 9, 2023
The matter has been set for trial and has been listed for recording of prosecution evidence on June 1.#ShraddhaWalkar #MurderCase #AftabAminPoonawala #DelhiCourt
Shraddha Walkar Murder Case
In November 2022, Aftab Amin Poonawala was arrested by Delhi Police after Shraddha Walkar‘s father filed a missing person complaint. Shraddha and Aftab were in a live-in relationship. Aftab killed Shraddha in May 2022, six months before his arrest. He allegedly killed her and chopped her body into 35 small pieces. He then bought a new fridge and stored her chopped body parts for days. Over the next few weeks, he disposed of Shraddha’s body in different locations across Delhi.
Several shocking details of the case came to the fore during the investigation. Aftab chopped her body into pieces and allegedly ground her bones into powder to scatter on the road. In January 2023, Delhi Police filed a 3,000 pages chargesheet against Aftab with around 100 testimonies. Shraddha was reportedly assaulted multiple times over the years by Aftab. There was a police complaint against him for the same, and Shraddha had left him after getting assaulted.
However, she chose to go back after Aftab requested her. Her father did not receive any communication from Shraddha for six months, and her friends were also unaware of the whereabouts, after which her father filed a police complaint in Mumbai. During the investigation, Mumbai police found they shifted to Delhi and transferred the case to Delhi police, which later found that Aftab killed her in May 2022.
Aftab was subsequently arrested in November 2022. During interrogation, he confessed to killing Shraddha six months before his arrest.