Aaftab Amin Poonawala was dating several women through an app and even brought one to his residence while the body parts of his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar were still lying there and used to remove them from the fridge during her visits, the Delhi police have claimed in its charge-sheet.
Giving a chilling account of the gory crime, the police alleged that Walkar was “already living in constant fear of getting killed” even before the accused decided to get rid of her in a barbaric and brutal manner.
Poonawala had earlier tried to mislead police by giving a false statement that after murdering Walkar, he had burnt her body pieces and after grinding the bones with a stone grinder, blown or thrown away the powder, the charge-sheet said.
According to excerpts from the 6,629-page-long charge-sheet, soon after the murder of Walkar, the accused again came in contact with several girls through ‘Bumble', a dating app through which he came to know Walkar.
“He came in contact with one such girl… who is a psychologist and called (her)... to his flat. However, when she used to visit his flat, Aaftab used to clean the fridge and used to put the body parts of Shraddha on the upper shelf and at times on the lower shelf of the kitchen,” the charge-sheet said.
Poonawala, 28, allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar on May 18 last year and sawed her body into several pieces which he kept in a fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Chattarpur locality. He later disposed of the body parts across the city over several days.
The accused claimed that he became friends with Walkar in 2018-19 through the ‘Bumble' app itself and later the couple “fell in love”, it said.
According to Poonawala's disclosure statement, he made physical relations with Walkar for the first time on May 17, 2019.
Walkar's family, however, found a pregnancy test kit and raised objections to their relationship, following which Ponnawala took Walkar to a rented accommodation in Mumbai in October 2019, the charge-sheet said.
The couple's relationship soured when Walkar found out that Poonawala was talking to other women on the App, the charge-sheet said.
Poonawala's motive was to get rid of Walkar as she fought with him and abused him, the charge-sheet said.
A Delhi court on Tuesday took cognisance of the charge-sheet filed by Delhi Police.
During the interrogation, Poonawala confessed that on the evening of May 18, he had strangulated Walkar and subsequently bought a saw and cut her body into pieces to destroy the evidence, it said.
It said, “On May 19, he bought a new fridge, stored the body pieces in the freezer and fridge and disposed of these body parts in the jungle area of Chhattarpur, Mehrauli, Delhi one by one as per his convenience.”
“After killing Shraddha, I closed the main door of the house at about 7.45 pm and went to a nearby hardware shop… and purchased a saw, three blades, a hammer and a plastic clip.
"Thereafter, I came back to the flat and shifted the body of Shraddha in the bathroom and cut her hands…from the wrist… and kept them in a white polythene,” the charge-sheet quoted Poonawala's disclosure statement.
He added that “over the next four to five days, I cut the dead body in 17 pieces (three pieces of each hand (six pieces), three pieces of each leg (six pieces), head, torso, two pieces of pelvic, and thumb.”
The final report said Poonawala kept the remaining body parts of Shraddha in the refrigerator to prevent stench and decomposition.
The conduct of the accused in buying a saw, hammer, knives, chopper, trash bags, suitcase, refrigerator, eyebrow razor, articles for cleaning the washroom and others from the ‘Blinkit App', abnormal purchase of water bottles for the first three days and (purchase of ) dry ice is evident enough that the accused committed the murder on May 18 or thereafter and then purchased all those articles either to dispose of the dead body or to preserve the body parts from decomposing, the charge-sheet said.
“Shraddha was living with Aaftab Poonawala under constant fear of getting killed by Aaftab or being beaten badly on petty issues and Poonawala used to beat her mercilessly and at times used to strangulate her almost to death,” the charge-sheet further said.
It said that Walkar was bereft of a support system as she was living with Poonawala against the wishes of her father and brother and was not in contact with her family.
“...the accused was of aggressive behaviour and he used to beat Shraddha on petty issues… This is also clear that he tortured and tormented Shraddha and she decided to break up with the accused several times but she could not because she had no support system and she was largely banking on the accused or rather she was at no return point,” the charge-sheet said.
