Shraddha murder: Aaftab Poonawala moves Delhi court for bail, hearing tomorrow

mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Dec 16, 2022: Aaftab Ameen Poonawala, accused of strangulating and killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, moved Delhi’s Saket court on Friday, seeking bail. The matter will be heard in court tomorrow, December 17.

 

The court on December 9 extended Poonawala’s judicial custody for 14 days. Aaftab, who is in judicial custody, is accused of killing Shraddha Walkar, chopping her body into 35 pieces, storing them in a fridge before dumping them in south Delhi’s Mehrauli forest area over a period of several days.

Poonawala is currently in judicial custody till December 23, and is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

The Delhi Police teams investigating the case recovered 13 decomposed bone pieces and a part of a jaw after the accused told the investigators that he chopped her body into several pieces and dumped them into the forest area. Some of the remains of the body parts were also recovered from forest areas in Gurugram, close to Aaftab’s office.

Police officials also recovered blood samples from the bathroom and kitchen from the couple’s flat in South Delhi, where they had shifted on May 15, three days before the murder.

On Thursday, the DNA extracted from the bone pieces recovered in the Mehrauli forest matched with Shraddha Walkar father’s samples. Police said that the report was received from CFSL (Central Forensic Science Laboratory) located at Lodhi Road.

Walkar and Poonawala met through the dating app ‘Bumble’ in 2018. They had come to Delhi on May 8 and shifted to the Chattarpur area on May 15. Shraddha’s father had not been in touch with her as he was upset over her inter-faith relationship with Aaftab.

The couple lived together for some months in their hometown in Vasai near Mumbai before shifting to Delhi. In 2020, Shraddha had written a letter to the police stating that Aaftab beat her and her parents were aware of the torture.

Recently, Shraddha’s father, Vikas Walkar held a presser to allege that Maharashtra Police showed laxity when his daughter had reported that she was assaulted by Aaftab in 2020. Police said she later made a written submission asking for no action to be taken as they had struck a compromise.

Meanwhile, Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena approved the proposal of the Delhi Police to appoint special public prosecutors to represent the Union Territory in the trial court in the Shraddha Walkar murder case.

Courtesy: India Today