Accused in the grisly Shraddha Walkar murder case Aaftab Poonawalla told a Saket Court judge that he murdered Walkar in the heat of the moment. He also said that he is cooperating with the investigation and that he has difficulty recalling the incident.
“Whatever mistake I made was in the heat of the moment,” Aaftab told the judge during a special hearing. The Saket court extended Poonawala's custody for four more days.
The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) has said that a polygraph test will be conducted on Poonawala before a Narco test. His consent will be needed for this procedure. FSL Assistant Director Punit Puri told news agency PTI that the polygraph test will be followed by medical tests, following which the Narco test will be performed.
Polygraph test refers to a non-invasive technique where no medicine is used and a subject is attached to a machine and questioned about the matters related to a case or incident. Variations in the graph, while the subject responds to these questions, are used to draw a conclusion.
The Delhi Police sought Aftab’s Narco test as his responses were “deceptive” during the interrogation. Meanwhile, Shraddha’s friends also said that Aaftab used to beat her and that she used to call sick to work often due to the physical violence. Her team manager Karan said that it was in November 2020 when he first got to know that Shraddha was facing domestic abuse.
Her friend Laxman Nadar told India Today that Walkar told him if she stayed with Aftab, he would kill her. Nadar said, “Once she contacted me on WhatsApp and asked me to rescue her from her residence. She said that if she stayed with him (Aftab) that night, he would kill her.”
She was also hospitalised for almost a week in the same year at Ozone Multispeciality Hospital in Vasai with symptoms such as severe back pain, nausea, difficulty in movement of the neck, and tingling and numbness in the back.
Poonawala allegedly strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and chopped her body into 35 pieces on May 18 this year. He stored her dismembered body in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks before dumping them. Poonawala is currently in the custody of the Delhi Police. The police have recovered multiple body parts so far.
(With PTI, India Today inputs)
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