Chopped Shraddha's body into more than 17 pieces, Aftab confessed: Charge sheet
Darpan News Desk IANS, 07 Feb, 2023 12:26 PM
New Delhi, Feb 7 (IANS) Aftab Amin Poonawala, who accused of murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, had chopped her body into more than 17 pieces, as per his confession, the charge sheet filed by police in Saket court said.
According to the charge sheet, after killing Shraddha on May 18 last year, Poonawalla locked their rented accommodation at south Delhi's Chattarpur Pahari area at about 7.45 p.m and went to a nearby hardware shop where he bought a saw, three blades, a hammer and plastic clip.
"Thereafter I came back to the flat and shifted Shraddha's body into the bathroom where I cut her hands from the wrist with the help of the saw and kept them in white polythene... while cutting her wrist I also got minor cut on my left hand with saw," read his second statement given to investigators after he tried to mislead police.
"I placed the polythene containing both hands of Shraddha in the lower cabinet of the kitchen under the water tank," he told investigators.
Next day on May 19, 2022, Poonawalla bought a refrigerator for Rs 25,000, and the shopkeeper sent it to his address by evening of the same day.
"I had bought a fridge on May 19 (a day after Shraddha was killed) so that I may keep the remaining body parts of Shraddha in the refrigerator to prevent stench and decomposition," he confessed.
In the intervening night of May 19-20, 2022, he, at about 2 a.m., first disposed off the body's thigh in the jungle of Chattarpur Pahari situated at Mehrauli-Gurugram road near a red light.
"Over the next 4-5 days, I cut her body into 17 pieces - hands into six pieces, legs into six pieces, head, torso, two pieces of pelvic part and thumbs. I used to dispose of the body parts one by one as per my convenience," Poonawalla confessed.
He packed some of the body parts in a trash bag and kept the others in the freezer. To clean up the blood, he bought toilet cleaner, bleach, handwash, and other items from a shopping app Blinkit.
The chargesheet states that soon after killing Walkar, he came in contact with a girl through dating app Bumble and she even visited his flat and stayed at night several times.
"Whenever she used to visit my flat, I used to clean the refrigerator and used to put body parts of Sharddha in the lower cabinet of the kitchen," Poonawalla told police.
After her departure, he used to return the remaining body parts - the head, torso, both forearms - in the refrigerator.
Even after killing Walkar and dating a girl, Poonawalla kept on using Walkar's Instagram account which was logged onto from his phone. He texted her friend Laxman, posing as Walkar.
"On the day of the murder, I transferred Rs 54,000 from her mobile phone to my account twice. After that, I went to Mumbai in the first week of June to collect the goods from my rented house in Vasai. I came back to Delhi. When I was called by the Maharashtra Police to inquire about Shraddha, I dumped her phone," he stated in his confession.
On January 24, the police had filed the charge sheet in the case which contains over 6,000 pages.
On Tuesday, after taking cognisance of the charge sheet, the court posted the case for its scrutiny on February 21.
The area around the Intelligence Bureau office has been sealed and investigation is in progress. A bomb disposal and forensic squads have been positioned at the spot. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann spoke to Director General of Police V.K. Bhawra and sought details about the incident.
Notably, the police detained several people, including party workers, who were not allowing the SDMC to carry out the demolition drive at Shaheen Bagh. After the agitation was quelled, the bulldozer moved forward to demolish the illegal encroachment, an iron structure in front of a building. It is at this juncture that Khan reached the spot and was seen speaking to the officials.
Punjab shares a 553-km barbed-wire fenced international border with Pakistan which is under the vigil of nearly 135 BSF battalions. The drug network operates along the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India route.
Police are looking at this angle. The incident took place near Kengeri at 1 a.m. and the injured were shifted to nearby hospitals. According to the police, the bus had first hit the 4-feet tall road divider and then rammed into the Namma Metro Pillar number 545.
Chairing a meeting of the Special Task Force (STF) team led by its chief Harpreet Sidhu here, Mann said neither political persons nor officers would be spared if found conniving with the drug mafia. He told the police officers to work freely without any political pressure with a sharpened focus to make Punjab a drug-free state.
According to the SHO of Cantonment police station, Rajeev Singh, Ram Lakhan's wife informed the police that her husband had confessed to killing their son following a fight with her. A police team went looking for the 'body' but could not find the child.
