Delhi Murder Case Updates: Blood samples of victim's father, brother collected for DNA analysis

Food blogger Aaftab Poonawala, who is being probed for murdering his livein partner Shraddha Walkar and chopping her body into 35 pieces in May, had avoided suspicion for months and could have carried on till he fell into the trap of Vasai cops, who had him tailed closely, and let drop during a long drinking session about having killed Walkar. Poonawala, 28, who was summoned for questioning after October 6 when an application submitted by Shraddha’s father Vikas about his missing daughter set a probe rolling, had clearly thought out a plan to stonewall the police. Poonawala, the prime suspect, didnot hesitate to talk about his live-in relationship with Shraddha, 26. He told the cops Shraddha had left their Delhi home after a tiff, and admitted it was a mistake not to have tried to patch up or check on her. With sincerity, he offered all help in tracing Shraddha.

Food blogger Aaftab Poonawala, being probed for murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, is learnt to have told cops they fought regularly for over a year, ‘broke up’ and were in fact living as flatmates than as a couple. He said he killed Shraddha some time between 8pm and 9pm on May 18, dragged the body through the kitchen to the bathroom and left it there for the night. Senior cops, however, said they were not taking his claims on face value and will wait for what he says during the narco analysis examination. Cops are also exploring the option to conduct a polygraph (lie detector) test.

Food blogger Aaftab Poonawalla had introduced his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar as his wife while looking for a rented accommodation in Vasai.Poonawala, 28, has been arrested in Delhi for murdering Walkar, 26, and chopping her body into 35 parts reportedly in May in their rented home in Chhatarpur Pahadi. Cops are searching the forested areas of Mehrauli, where he is said to have disposed of the pieces over a period of time. The couple, both Vasai residents who met on a dating app in 2019, decided to move in together soon after. Her parents had objected to the interfaith relationship, but she walked out on them. During their three years together, they lived in three houses in the Vasai region.

During interrogation on Wednesday, Aaftab Poonawala is learnt to have told police that Shraddha and he had “broken up” sometime before the murder, a source said. Aaftab claimed they had been fighting regularly over the past year and were, in fact, living as flatmates and not as a couple. “He even claimed that they fought over ownership of household goods. Shraddha had asked him to bring some stuff back from their earlier accommodations, but he refused. He claimed these petty issues snowballed into nasty fights,” said the source. On Wednesday, when police asked Aaftab to tell them the sequence of murder and disposal of her body again, he said he killed Shraddha sometime between 8pm and 9pm on May 18 and dragged the body through the kitchen to the bathroom and left it there for the night. He was asked to repeat the sequence of events multiple times in different ways to check his versions.

With many of the dismembered portions of Shraddha Walkar’s body, including the head and torso, yet to be recovered after her murder was discovered on November 11, Delhi Police is set to seek extension of the custody of the alleged killer, Aaftab Poonawala, Walkar’s live-in partner. His police remand ends on Thursday. For now, the cops have sent the bones recovered till Tuesday for forensic matching of DNA with her father’s. As part of their investigation in the gruesome crime in which Poonawala strangled Walkar, chopped her body into 35 parts, stored them in a refrigerator and threw them in various places over three months, police will map the CCTV footage of the localities to ascertain the accused's movements. Sources said that police had stumbled upon CCTV footage dating back to May-June, but it is as yet unclear if Poonawala has been caught by the cameras.