Shraddha Walkar, who was killed by Aftab Poonawala, had feared her death two years back, police claim. Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi’s Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight. The murder occurred in May.
In a letter to the police in 2020, Shraddha had a premonition that Aftab would kill her and chop her body to pieces. It was during this period that the accused started beating Shraddha to an extent that she was admitted to hospital with bruises all over her body. India TV has accessed the letter. In the one-page letter, Shraddha complains, "He Aftab has been abusing me and beating me. Today (November 23, 2020) he tried to kill me... and blackmails me that he will cut me up in pieces and throw me away."
On Tuesday, Aftab underwent a polygraph test evening after a city court gave permission to Delhi Police even as investigators found more evidence, including blood stains in the flat where both lived. Her friends have also told police that Shraddha often feared for her life from Aftab.
Poonawala on Tuesday told a Delhi court, which extended his police remand by four days, that he acted in the "heat of the moment" and that it was not "deliberate", according to Abinash Kumar, the lawyer representing the accused. Kumar later said after speaking to Poonawala that he "never confessed in the court that he killed Walkar".
