Highlights
- After settling into their new house, the duo moved to Delhi and wanted to shift household items from Mumbai.
- The quarrel started around 8pm on May 18 when Poonawala strangled Walkar to death
- The 28-year-old kept the body parts in the freezer for days and used incense sticks and room freshener to suppress the foul smell.
Aaftab Amin Poonawala, who the Delhi Police have arrested for the murder of his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar told the cops that on May 18, the couple had fought over sharing household expenses.
After settling into their new house, the duo moved to Delhi and wanted to shift household items from Mumbai.
Fought over sharing expenses
They fought over who will bear the expenses, and the tiff escalated to the brutal murder of Walkar.
“On May 18, there was a fight between the two regarding bringing household items from Mumbai. They used to fight over who would bear the household expenses and bring items. Poonawala got very angry about this. The quarrel started around 8pm on May 18 when Poonawala strangled Walkar to death,” a Delhi Police source told ANI.
“He kept her body in the room overnight and went to buy a knife and refrigerator the next day,” the source added.
Chopped off the body and kept in a new fridge
Poonawala was a trained chef and knew to handle sharp knives. He applied the know-how to chop Walkar’s body into 35 pieces. It reportedly took him two days to cut the body into pieces and pack them in the refrigerator’s deep freezer.
The 28-year-old kept the body parts in the freezer for days and used incense sticks and room freshener to suppress the foul smell.
After some time, he took out the frozen pieces one by one, packed them in polythene bags and took them to the forest in a backpack.
“He would go to the jungle at around 2 am and return a couple of hours later. He repeated this for around 20 days,” a police official said.
Earlier, police had claimed that Poonawala had admitted that he had kept Walkar’s severed head in the refrigerator for a long time. He would often look at it to keep memories of their relationship.
Hunt for missing body parts
Though Poonawala has been arrested, except for the reported admissions he made during the interrogation, the Delhi Police is struggling to find evidence for the gruesome act.
Since the murder happened in May and the body was chopped into pieces and discarded at different places, cops have the nearly-impossible task of recovering them.
Some 13 body parts suspected of a woman were found in the Mehrauli forest, where Poonawala admitted that he had dumped some of the pieces.
Unidentified skull found in June could be Walkar’s
Crucially the skull of Walkar and the murder weapon are still missing.
But there are some reports that the Delhi Police recovered a skull from Pandav Nagar in June along with some other body parts that could be of Walkar.
The recovered body parts from Mehrauli forest will be matched with the DNA of the victim’s father to ascertain the identity.
