Delhi: Delhi Police on Tuesday took Aaftab Amin Poonawala, accused of killing his live-in partner, to the forest area in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur and spent nearly three hours locating specific places where he had allegedly dumped her body parts.
The police have also recovered 13 body parts, believed to be of the woman, from different areas which will be sent for DNA analysis. The investigating team is also likely to approach dating app Bumble through which the duo met.
According to a senior police official, one of victim Shradaha Walkar’s friends Laxman, who alerted her father, will be asked to join the investigation. The accused will again be taken to different locations on Wednesday for further probe in the case.
Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled Walkar in May 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.
Police officials said as the area is home to many young tenants, who usually go out during odd hours, nobody may have suspected Poonawala’s movements late in the night.
It is suspected that when another women came to his flat, Poonawala used to shift the body pieces from the fridge to his cupboard so that if anyone opens the fridge, he is not suspected, they said.
A police official said the accused searched on Google ‘how to cut human body’, adding he disposed of blood-stained clothes in an MCD garbage van.
A day after gut-wrenching details of the gruesome murder came in light, Poonawala, with his face covered with a white cloth and surrounded by police personnel, was taken to the woods.
The ire over the killing seemed to spill over with a woman at the spot asking Poonawala if he was ashamed of his actions.
A friend of Walkar said there could be a “big conspiracy” behind her murder, while another claimed she had once called him saying Poonawala would kill her.
Tuesday’s search did not yield results even as 13 possible parts have been recovered, mostly in the form of bones, during searches launched last week.
Meanwhile, a doctor who treated Poonawalla, said the accused had visited him in May, the same month when the woman was killed, for treating a wound.
Dr Anil Kumar recalled Poonawalla was very aggressive and restless when he had come to him for treatment and when he asked him about his injury, he claimed he got hurt while cutting fruit.
A senior police official said that during the day, the “crime scene was recreated to understand and ascertain the sequence of events that led to the heinous crime and how he managed to locate the spots where different pieces could be dumped without inviting public glare”.
Head of the Department of Crime Scene Management at FSL Rohini, Sanjeev Gupta, said a two-member team of experts on Saturday visited the scene of crime and collected at least seven-eight bone pieces along with blood stains.
“These exhibits were handed over to the Investigating Officer. We are yet to receive the exhibits from police. A DNA analysis will be done to establish the identity of the woman,” he told PTI.
Blood samples of the woman’s parents would also be collected for DNA analysis.
The police are also likely to approach authorities at online dating app Bumble through which both the accused and victim met.
“We want to access his account to analyse his profile and know how many women he was in contact with and screen the chats to understand his psyche. Based on the profile analysis we will also be approaching those people with whom he was in contact with and invited them to the same residence where he had killed the woman,” the official further said.
Police are also trying to get in touch with the accused’s friends and will probe whether he was in relationship with multiple women after killing Walkar or he was cheating on her when they were together.
“We will approach some of his friends whom he met before being in relationship with the woman,” the official said, adding, his social media account is also being analysed to get details about their common friends.
According to officials, the owner of a shop from where Poonawala had allegedly bought the saw couldn’t share any details about any purchase.
“The owner of the electronic shop from where he had allegedly bought the fridge said he also doesn’t remember about the payment. The phone of the accused has been seized and will be examined,” the police official said.
Laxman, who had alerted her family members after being unable to contact her, claimed, “Once Walkar (when she was living in Vasai town near Mumbai) had messaged me and asked me to come and take her saying Aaftab would kill her.” Some of the friends then reached out to Walkar and warned Poonawala, he said.
“We were then going to approach police against Aaftab but Shraddha stopped us,” he claimed.
According to a housing society member, Poonawala had visited Unique Park Housing Society in Vasai around 15 days ago to help his family members who shifted from the society to Mumbai.
He said the Poonawalas own a flat in the society and lived there for 20 years before shifting. Nobody ever complained against them.
“When we asked them the reason behind shifting, Aaftab’s father told us that his son got a job in Mumbai and his company will pay rent. They also spoke about inconvenience (about shuttling between Mumbai and Vasai, which is in Palghar district and part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region),” he said.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra BJP MLA Ram Kadam said he will write a letter to Delhi Police to seek a probe into a possible ‘love jihad’ angle behind the murder. A group of people in Delhi staged a protest holding posters saying “Stop Love Jihad”.
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