The Delhi Police recorded the testimonies of accused Aaftab Amin Poonawalla’s family in the heinous Shraddha Walkar murder case on Wednesday.
Aaftab is accused of strangling his live-in spouse Shraddha to death and dismembering her body into 35 parts. He is also accused of storing the severed body parts in a refrigerator before discarding them in the jungles of Chhatarpur in south Delhi. Meanwhile, a complaint made by Shraddha in 2020 with Maharashtra Police about Aaftab’s abuse of her has surfaced.
Shraddha said in a letter to Tulini Police in Palghar that if police did not intervene, she would be hurt.
Shraddha said in her letter that Aaftab Poonawala beat her and threatened to murder her.
“If something happens to me, you should know who to go after,” she further wrote in her letter to police.
According to sources, Aaftab’s family may be called in for questioning again.
“Aaftab Poonawala’s family is in Delhi. Their statements were recorded. Based on the facts that have come to light about the family, they may be questioned again. Shraddha had filed a complaint in Mumbai in 2020 that his family knows he wants to kill her,” said sources.
Tulini Police have confirmed that the deceased had written a complaint on November 23, 2020, which was shared by her neighbour with whom Shraddha had gone to file the complaint.
Aaftab had on Tuesday told a Delhi court that he murdered his girlfriend in the “heat of the moment”.
He was produced before the Saket court in the national capital on Tuesday after his five-day police custody expired.
“What happened that happened in heat of the moment,” Aaftab told the court.
A court-sanctioned polygraphy test on Aaftab was initiated in the national capital on Tuesday. The assistant director of the Forensic Science Laboratory, Rohini, Sanjeev Gupta said the process of conducting a polygraph test on Aaftab has begun and the report will be out in a week’s time.
Delhi Police had previously said Aaftab, following his arrest in the case, confessed to killing his live-in partner in their apartment in West Delhi’s Chhatarpur and chopping her body into 35 pieces.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Gupta said, “We’ve been directed by the Delhi Police and our director to process this case fast. We are working on some parameters that are important before conducting a narco test.”
The individual is given a series of questions while physiological markers such as blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing are monitored during a polygraph exam. This information is then utilised to establish whether or not the individual is lying.
Aaftab is accused of storing the severed body parts in a refrigerator before discarding them in the Chhatarpur jungles.
Aaftab and Shraddha met on a dating site and eventually moved in together to a leased apartment in Chhatarpur as their romance developed.
On November 10, Delhi Police filed a FIR after receiving a complaint from Shraddha’s father.
Subsequent questioning of the accused showed that Aaftab murdered Shraddha on May 18, following which he began looking for methods to dispose of the body.
He also admitted to authorities that he researched human anatomy before slicing up his girlfriend’s body.
According to police, after researching methods to obliterate all signs of his crime on the internet, Aaftab wiped blood spots off the floor of the couple’s Chhatarpur flat with chemicals and disposed of all contaminated garments.
He then moved the body to the bathroom and purchased a refrigerator to preserve the cut body parts, according to authorities.
