INDIA. Mumbai: While the police remand of Aaftab Amin Poonawalla (28), arrested in connection with the brutal murder of his live-in partner Shraddha Vikas Walkar (26) in May this year, gets over on Saturday, a complaint submitted by Shraddha to local police amply indicate that she was aware of impending disaster two years back.
Shraddha wrote in a letter to the police on November 23, 2020, at the Tulinj police station in Nala Sopara East (close to Mumbai), that Aaftab used to hit her, frighten her, and threaten to murder her. Previously, Walkar’s residence in Vasai was under the authority of this police station.
“Today, he tried to kill me by suffocating me, and he scares and blackmails me that he will kill me, cut me up in pieces and throw me away. It’s been 6 months he has been hitting me, but I did not have the guts to go to the police because he would threaten to kill me,” Shraddha stated in her letter.
She also added that Aaftab’s parents were visiting their residence at Regal Apartment, Vasai. They were also aware that he hit her and tried to kill her.
“Henceforth, I’m not willing to live with him, so any kind of physical damage should be considered coming from him, as he has been blackmailing me to kill me or hurt me whenever he sees me anywhere,” she had stated in her complaint.
A copy of Shraddha’s handwritten letter to the Tuling police has been made available by the Palghar police Group (PPG), a social media group formed by those connected with the Palghar police.
Aaftab, who allegedly killed Shraddha on May 18 in his flat in Delhi’s Chhatarpur area, was arrested on November 12 and continues to be in police custody. The police are in the process of conducting his polygraph and Narco analysis test.
A team of Delhi police which is in Vasai interrogated nearly 20 people, including three girls, to whom Aaftab was dating through the dating app Bumble, on Tuesday.
Since 2018, Shraddha and Aaftab were in live-in relationship. In 2019, they settled at the Yashwant Pride Kini Complex in Naigaon. They moved to Regal Apartment in Vasai’s Evershine Complex in July 2020. They relocated to a new location in August 2021 after the live-and-license deal ended. They then moved to New Delhi’s Mehrauli neighborhood in March.
When Shradha’s coworker Laxman Nadar notified her father, Vikas Walkar (59), that Shradha had left her phone off for an extended period of time, the crime began to unfold. The Manikpur police first declined Walkar’s request to file a missing person report due to a jurisdictional issue. On October 12, they subsequently filed the complaint.
Through call data, the police were able to determine Aaftab’s location, and on November 3, they summoned him to Vasai for questioning. When questioned by the authorities, he claimed that Shraddha had left the Delhi apartment on May 22, even though he had already murdered and dissected her on May 18.
After then, the case was given to Mehrauli Police Station in the South Delhi area, which on November 10 filed an FIR based on Walkar’s statement.
In the meanwhile, the Mehrauli police have found a site plan prepared by Aaftab detailing the parts of Shraddha’s body thrown by him at different places in New Delhi. They have also obtained CCTV footage in which he is seen moving away from his residence with a huge sack in the dead of night.
The police have sent bloodstained tiles in his bathroom for forensic tests, along with other materials, including Shraddha’s retrieved body parts. As of now, the case is based on circumstantial evidence, and there is no substantial evidence, his lawyer has claimed.
Also Read: Shraddha Walkar’s Murder, the Police to Interrogate Aftab’s Parents
