The recent death of 28-year-old Shraddha Walker in Delhi, leaves us all shocked with the horror in the way the murder was committed.
Aaftab, aged 28, chopped her body into 35 parts. Stored her body in the refrigerator. Every day over the last few months, he used to throw the dismembered body parts in different parts of the city. He even lit incense sticks and lived in the house for days with the chopped body parts stored in the newly bought refrigerator, for the same purpose.
Her fault apparently was pressuring Aftab to get married to her. Unable to take the pressure, he plotted the murder.
This inhuman incident brings to light two evils. First is the failure of a society that refuses to address mental sickness in people. The anger issues that the accused murderer Aftab had. In his sick mind, he must have viewed Shraddha as a perpetrator. This justified his motive behind the alleged murder.
There are innumerable homes where the male child emulates an angry adult in the family. The male child is rarely ever rebuked or given any corrective measures to bring about behavioural changes.
Homicide at this level is very evidently, a preplanned affair. In this too, Aaftab must have planned and plotted this all along, while Shraddha was still alive.
The question that arises is are women the only ones who need the validation of marriage even in a live-in relationship?
Is society still unaccepting of a non-virgin woman? Or a woman who has had the misfortune of a failed relationship or marriage? Will she be in perpetual fear and insecurity, knowing that maybe it will be extremely hard for her to restart her life. The answer is yes!
The pressure that often women face is insurmountable. Therefore, many are unwilling to look at the red flags in the early stages of the relationship with the partner they choose to love or marry.
The truth is that in the majority of cases, women associate respect from their lover or boyfriend in the marriage proposal they get from their partner. The sad part is also that an educated woman can be found flexing this among their women group of girlfriends.
This is validated in regressive sentences like “he is serious about me.” It is very rarely about her.
Unfortunately, it is only the married tag that makes her appear more attractive, more valuable in the eyes of society and in the relationship she has embarked on.
Whereas the man always appears to be the person with multiple options. When he chooses the woman, to marry, this must be because she is marriage material, which in turn means, she is more valuable.
With the increase in the number of live in relationships, many young couples in the recent years, choose to not marry and they consummate their relationships. But with such a bold step and a liberal attitude, women still finally want the societal acceptance of marriage.
Many women believe that once she has been in a sexual relationship without being married. Adding to that, if the family and relatives has been witness to the live in arrangement, the door to other options is shut forever. Her value and acceptance in the marriage market crashes. Her reputation is at stake. Bad girls are not marriage material is the opinion.
Many women like Shraddha continue in these unbelievable horrific relationships. In this case too, she must have been witness to Aaftab’s rage. She maybe couldn’t confide to anyone or get out. Especially given the situation with her non consenting parents.
According to the UNODC report, some 47,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members in 2020.
This means that, on average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes. Where trends can be calculated, they show that the magnitude of such gender-related killings remains largely unchanged, however, with only marginal increases and decreases over the past decade.
Aaftab was a chef and was used to chopping meat and vegetables. It appears that maybe, while he worked, he imagined Shraddha’s body parts to be cut in a similar way, with the same precision. He has confessed that he was inspired by the television series of Dexter Morgan, a man with homicidal tendencies, who lives a double life. He works as a forensic technician for the police department during the day and kills heinous perpetrators in his free time. Aaftab used Dexter’s inspiration to silence her forever.
Apparently, the parents were against the interreligious relationship. Therefore, the couple decided to move from Mumbai to Mehrauli, in New Delhi. Shraddha was not in touch with her parents. But her parents kept track of her activities, and when they didn’t find any updates on social media, the father decided to come to New Delhi to investigate the sudden disappearance of his daughter.
The search led to a horrific turn of events, where the only remains found were a few bones and some parts that had been chopped into little pieces.
Aaftab has been lodged in jail. But what remains baffling, is his ability of killing someone who he has been intimate with, in this gruesome manner.
Dexter inspiration was used with dexterity.
Mohua Chinappa is an author and a podcaster of a show called The Mohua Show.