Lovers fight, break up, and walk away, but chopping one to pieces as did to poor Shraddha Walkar, and feeding body parts to dogs is insane.
This is titled “Delhi murder case: Love, betrayal and a chilling fallout” but the title is inappropriate for the nature of the crime. It was not just a chilling fallout but far worse and Shraddha Walkar lost her life in a situation where had she known who she was dealing with, she would have fled fast and saved her life.
Shraddha Walka and Aaftab Amin Poonawala
Aaftab Amin Poonawala was a 28-year-old food blogger living with his 26-year-old girlfriend Shraddha Walkar at their Delhi flat. They were both from Vasai and had met on a dating app and moved in together to a rented apartment in Naigaon in 2019.
Shraddha lost her mother in 2020 and had a strained relationship with her father, Vikas Matan Walka, ever since a teenager and in fact, in college, she had told her friends and teachers about not having a father and being the sole breadwinner for her mother and younger brother.
Vikas Matan Walka reports that while working in a call centre in Mumbai, she met Aaftab Amin Poonawala. Walkar worked for an IT-based call centre in Malad while Poonawala took up graphic design assignments. “After 8-9 months, they found out she and Aaftab were in a relationship. In 2019, Shraddha told her mother that she wanted to live with Aaftab,” says the father’s statement. When the family opposed Shraddha’s decision, “she told the family that she was 25 years old and had the right to take decisions pertaining to her life”, the father said. Then declaring she was no longer their daughter, Shraddha left the house.
At this point, after the father did not keep in touch with her though he states he regrets it because he used to get floating news that Aaftab was abusive, fought with her, and beat her.
“I didn’t speak to her for many months as she didn’t listen to me… Shraddha spoke to me on the phone a couple of times after the death of my wife and told me Aaftab used to beat her up,” Walkar told the police.
She again informed him about Aaftab’s abusive behaviour when she visited home around this time. “I told her to leave Aaftab and stay back at home but she returned after Aaftab apologized,” said Walkar.
Shraddha’s friends Shivani Mahatre and Laxman Nadar, also reported that he often thrashed her. Suspicion rose when on September 14, Shraddha’s brother Jay received a call from Nadar informing him that Shraddha’s phone had been switched off for about two months.
Nadar the friend told cops that Poonawala was abusive and had been warned when he was in Vasai. “Early this year, she had sent me a message saying she feared for her life as Poonawala was getting excessively abusive,” said Nadar, who along with a few friends landed at their rented home in Naigaon and warned Poonawala. “We advised Walkar to file a police complaint against him but she refused,” recalled Nadar.
This was reported to her father who then took Nadar’s number and spoke to him. He said she had been unreachable since July-August. Tense, Vikas Walkar lodged a missing report at Manickpur police station in Maharashtra.
He said, “I suspect some foul play in her disappearance because Aaftab regularly beat her. Kindly investigate the matter,” said Walkar in the complaint. The case was transferred to Mehrauli in Delhi based on Shraddha’s last location.
Walkar then arrived in Delhi to discover the shocking news from the police that his daughter had been murdered.
The Crime
After studying at a junior college in Vasai, Shraddha joined the Viva Institute of Technology to pursue a mass media program in 2015. “She dropped out before her final year,” said Sahin Mulani, the course coordinator at VIT.
“She used to miss classes and claimed she was working to support her mother and brother,” Mulani recalled Poonawala coming regularly to the college to meet Shraddha. The girl’s friends revealed that while she was looking at a long-term relationship with Poonawala, it was unlikely she was pestering him for marriage.
She had introduced her partner to most of her close friends. “Shraddha was serious about her relationship with Poonawala, but her parents were opposed to it. When she decided to move out of her home, Poonawala agreed to join her,” said a friend.
Aaftab had promised to marry her but when Shraddha asked him to do so, he refused. He finally strangled her in a fit of rage during their last fight and to hide evidence, cut the body into 35 pieces using a meat cleaver. He was once trained as a chef and was experienced at cutting meat. Once Aaftab Amin Poonawala had strangled Shraddha Walkar at their Delhi flat, in a fit of rage, he even went out at 2 am, he fed the body parts to stray animals in a bid to destroy evidence and threw other parts over the city. The police have only found around 14 parts thus far.
On October 12, Manickpur police registered a missing complaint. “Aaftab was the prime suspect as the father told us about the live-in relationship,” said assistant police inspector Sachin Sanap. Poonawala, when called for questioning, travelled from Delhi to Vasai on two occasions. He told the cops that since they were in a live-in relationship, he did not stop her when she insisted on leaving him.
He claimed that Walkar was dating other men while living in with him. The cops were not convinced and sensed there was something wrong. They finally reached out to their Delhi counterparts on November 8, setting off an investigation by Delhi police.
“A report was registered at Mehrauli police station on November 9. The next day, an FIR of abduction was registered, based on Shraddha’s father’s statement,” said a senior police officer. “A team comprising ACP Vinod Narang, inspector P C Yadav, and others was formed to investigate the case. After an initial inquiry, Aaftab was nabbed using technical surveillance and arrested. He broke down and confessed,” said the cops.
According to additional DCP Ankit Chauhan, Poonawala and Shraddha had visited hill stations in March and April in an attempt to heal their strained relationship and start afresh. They decided to stay in Delhi subsequently. Sady, after this, Shraddha was killed within weeks. The cops are probing if convincing Shraddha to stay back in Delhi was part of Aaftab’s plan to get rid of her. He had started working at a call centre in Delhi after the murder.
Poonawala has claimed that Shraddha used to talk to someone on the phone and make video calls too. The investigators say he displayed no remorse. “He was confident that he would not get caught,” said an officer.
“The boy kept changing his statements. We shared the input with our senior officers and the same was shared with Delhi police and Mehrauli police station. Our officers also went to the said house and verified the mobile data and bank records of the deceased. There were no bank transactions and her mobile has been switched off since May 2022,” Patil said.
“We have found that the knife and the refrigerator were purchased from the local market,” the officer said. “He used to keep ice cream, cold drinks, and other foodstuffs in the same refrigerator.”
The police are trying to establish a clear motive but prima facie a soured relationship, pressure of marriage from Shraddha, and suspicion of infidelity from both sides led to a fight going out of control, resulting in the murder, said the cops. Aaftab has been booked under IPC sections of murder, abduction, and destruction of evidence.
According to the police, Poonawala used to chat with Shraddha’s friends through her Instagram account to avoid any suspicion. “He had also paid her credit card bills till June to avoid suspicion,” said a detective. He cleaned the refrigerator and room with chemicals to wipe out any stench. He may have used formaldehyde to preserve the pieces, said a police.
The police are ascertaining if Poonawala was using Shraddha’s cellphone for a few months after the murder. Laxman Nadar, Shraddha’s childhood friend who tipped off her family, has said in his statement to the police that he had last heard from Walkar through an SMS in June though she had been killed in May.
The cops are still looking for the body parts and have found only about 14 of those which will be examined by forensic officials and sent for a DNA match.
“Choking her was easy, but disposing of her body wasn’t,” says Aftab Poonawala without any remorse.
It was Nadar, the friend who got worried when he lost contact with her. He informed the family in August that her cellphone had been switched off since July and she had not responded to his text messages. On October 6, Vikas submitted an application at the Vasai DCP’s office saying his daughter was not reachable and her social media accounts had gone silent.
A Narcissistic Murder
It was not just “love, betrayal, and a fallout” but really a narcissistic psychopathic killer who committed this heinous act. One can conclude this by a few facts in this case. Aaftab was abusive, domineering, lied, and had no feelings, he could even use the same fridge that he had stored her body parts in without feeling a thing.
Narcissists are heavy abusers either verbal, physical, or both in the framework of manipulation and the last stage can be murder. A narcissist is a potential abuser who will never change. They never acknowledge they are abusive but blame the victim for making them attack them.
Another thing, if you cannot prove it, it never happened. They act as if the victim is the offender, as Aaftab did. They have no remorse for their crimes: Aaftab did not blink an eye to justify himself sd narcissists go to any lengths to protect themselves, and lie blatantly. Aaftab lied to protect himself by gaslighting and defaming Shraddha, the core trait of a narcissist.
While people would say he killed Shraddha because she was pestering him to marry her, it would be multiple issues of abuse from his side because Shraddha could never be perfect, no matter what she did. He would coin it as the main issue, feeling other men would identify with him and get sympathy.
Narcissists are basically not in touch with any emotions and Shraddha should have run away as fast as she could when she saw his abusive traits but who can blame her? Victims of narcissists remain in abusive relationships because they are made to feel inferior, the laborious brainwashing of a narcissist. They take advantage of your fallout with your family to make you their victim. Most people don’t even realize they are in with a narcissist and then it is too late to run away. And another thing, they don’t let you go too, they control you and manipulate you. Narcissists are also psychopaths who have ongoing antisocial behavior, deformed empathy, lack compassion, and without guilt for their actions, they are aggressive, and with egotistical traits.
You might want to read https://hamslivenews.com/2022/10/15/hearing-of-satyas-murder-her-dad-manikkam-had-a-fatal-heart-attack/