The 28-year-old Aaftab Amin Poonawala who killed his girlfriend and live-in partner some six months back and was arrested by the Delhi Police on Saturday late evening has no remorse over the act he had committed. He has said that now that the truth is out, I can “live in peace” and is perhaps much “relaxed”.
In a cold-blooded murder, Aaftab Poonawala, a food blogger and a professional chef killed his long-time girlfriend and live-in partner Shraddha Vikas Walkar in May this year at a rented apartment in South Delhi’s Mehrauli area.
After killing Walkar, Poonawala dismembered her body into 35 pieces and threw it into the jungles of Mehrauli through the next 18 days.
Police sources say that his training at a top notch five-star hotel as a chef made him an “expert” in anatomy and the use of
industrial scale chopper knives. Aaftab also initially presented himself as a professional and had no sign of guilt or fear when he was called for questioning by the Delhi Police.
As per the investigators within the Delhi Police investigating this case, Walkar was killed by Poonawala over a heated argument that broke out between the two and when Poonawala lost his cool on 18 May this year, he strangulated Shraddha and killed her.
“The act of killing Shraddha was an act done at the spur of the moment which is also unpardonable, but what followed post the killing, to dispose of the dead body is something that has not been seen even by us in this police profession for many years. The act of disposing of the dead body was planned meticulously keeping in mind every minute detail to not come under the radar of the police or to not get caught.” A Delhi Police officer investigating the murder case told The Daily Guardian.
According to the Delhi Police, Shraddha was killed by Aaftab at around 7 or 8 PM in the evening of 18 May and soon after Aaftab realised that Shraddha was dead, he began planning to dispose off the body. The Daily Guardian has accessed exclusive details from the Delhi Police investigating officers about the sequence of events that followed since the day of the murder and the details of the planning that went into disposing off the dead body.
On 18 May, after Shraddha was killed, Aaftab stepped out of his house at around 9 PM to buy a small cutter (blade that is used to cut pipes and other plumbing materials) from a nearby hardware store in Mehrauli. He used this cutter to chop off the wrist of Shraddha that same night and kept the rest of the body in his bathroom.
According to officers interrogating him, he used the cutter to chop the wrist since the wrist is one of the softest body parts and it was easily cut using that cutter. “That cutter was not sharp enough to cut the other body parts and therefore he was unable to cut them. He then left the body and went out the next day to buy sharper blades to cut the other body parts of Shraddha,” said a senior police officer.
On 19 May, Aaftab went to another hardware store in Mehrauli with his backpack, from where he had brought several 2 to 3 Kg black trash bags which he used to seal the body parts, a big chopper and large knife.
“He had put the knife and the chopper in his backpack, but the knife was so sharp that it pierced from his backpack and had hurt his right hand. He had got a cut on his right hand, where he also has a tattoo. After which he went to a nearby dispensary where he was treated for the cut and we have verified this story of Aaftab from the store and the doctors he visited for the treatment. The cut mark over his tattoo is still there.” The senior police officer told this newspaper.
According to police sources, Aaftab had also booked a 260-litre fridge on that same day and for which he had done the payment using his Citi Bank card. The fridge was delivered to his residence on 19 May at around 10:30 PM.
Soon after the delivery of the fridge, Aaftab started chopping off the other body parts of the victim to store them in the refrigerator throughout the night of 19 May. According to the investigators, Aaftab had first chopped off the ankle, thigh, legs and the head on that same night and used those purchased trash bags to store them in the fridge. While the torso, which still remained uncut till then, was stored in the bathroom.
The planning of disposing off the body was so meticulous and keeping in mind every minute details that Aaftab had even bought a blow torch used by chefs to burn and desecrate the wrists and the head of the bead body so that the body parts become unrecognisable. He had even chopped off the hairs from the head.
“After he finished cutting the body into pieces, he had decided that he would go to Uttarakhand to dispose off the body. Why Uttarakhand, because he and Shraddha had both visited Haridwar, Rishikesh and the adjoining places some weeks ago before the crime and he had seen some secluded places in the hills from where he had initially decided, he would throw the body either into the river or in the jungles. For this, he had even brought suitcase worth Rs 2000, the payment of which was done online,” the senior police officer told The Daily Guardian.
Aaftab later dropped the idea of going to Uttarakhand since the suitcase with the body became too heavy for him to carry around and he had gotten sceptical of being caught by the several police posts that are put in place across the route from Delhi to Haridwar.
Later, from 20 May Aaftab decided that he would dispose off the body parts one by one into the Mehrauli jungles in the dead of the night, after carefully packing them in the trash bags he had purchased earlier.
The police have so far recovered the fridge which he used to store the body parts from his residence, and about 12 -14 pieces of bones from the Mehrauli Jungle. The bones have been sent for forensic testing to AIIMS in Delhi and would be matched with the DNA of her father.
The Delhi Police however, is yet to recover the murder weapon in this case as sources in the police say that the accused is not being able to clearly tell the exact place where he had disposed it off.
“He is saying that he threw the weapons in the Mehrauli jungle and the trash bags in MCD’s garbage van. He is not able to tell us the exact location. We are also yet to locate the head or the skull as locations about the same is also not certain. Our search is on and we will keep looking for both the skull/head and the murder weapon.” A senior police officer from the Delhi Police told The Daily Guardian.
It is also learnt that it took so long for the murder to come to light because the father of the girl had no contact with her daughter since she left her house in 2019 and that she had allegedly told her father that she would not like to keep in touch with them since they did not approve for the relationship between her and Aaftab.
“It took a lot of coaxing and pressure from the friends of Shraddha for her father to lodge an official complaint with the Mumbai police. Since the Mumbai police had informed the Delhi Police that the last location of the girl was in Delhi and wanted to seek out help, we got involved in the case. It took a lot of planning for us to nab the accused. He was put on surveillance for some days and after we gathered enough material, we called him in for questioning and arrested him.” Said the senior Delhi Police officer quoted above.