Shraddha Walkar Murder: Delhi Cops complete arguments on charges against Aftab Poonawala

Delhi Police on Monday completed its arguments on charges against Aftab Amin Poonawala, accused of killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and chopping her body into pieces.

Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar posted the matter for further proceedings on March 25. Special Public Prosecutors (SPP) Amit Prasad and Madhukar Pandey appeared for Delhi Police.

SPP Prasad said incriminating circumstances are clearly revealed through reliable and clinching evidence and they form a chain of events. The chain of events leads to an irrefutable conclusion about the guilt of the accused, he added.

Advocate Javed Hussain, legal aid counsel (LAC) for Poonawala, sought time to respond to the arguments.

Earlier on February 21, a magisterial court committed the case to the sessions court after taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the police. Delhi Police had filed a 6,629-page charge sheet on January 24.

A love story doomed from the start

Aftab and Shraddha met through a dating app Bumble in 2019 and later moved in together at a rented accommodation in Chhatarpur. Her parents were against the inter-faith relationship and had stopped talking to her after she decided to move to Delhi with him.

Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha and chopped off her body into 17-18 peices which he kept in a 300-litre refrigerator for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days.

The police said that the couple would fight regularly over issues such as marriage and who would bear the household expenses. On May 18, he strangled her to death and then set out to buy a knife and fridge. Following a missing person's complaint filed by Shraddha's father on November 10 as her daughter was untraceable for over two months. An FIR was registered against the attackers under Sections 186, 353, 147, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Prashant Vihar Police Station in connection with the case.

Aftab was arrested on November 12 and sent to five-day police custody, which was further extended by five days on November 17. On November 22, he was sent to police custody for four days. The court in Delhi on December 23, sent him to judicial custody for 14 days.