NEW DELHI: Father of Shraddha Walkar on Friday denied before a Delhi court that he had beaten his late wife in front of his two children and that he had a conversation with his daughter about the reason for beating his wife. He also denied having any knowledge about his daughter consuming LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide), a synthetic chemical based-drug categorised as a hallucinogen.
The victim’s father, Vikas Madan Walkar, was being cross-examined as a prosecution witness by accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala’s counsel before ASJ Manisha Khurana Kakkar. Poonawala is accused of strangling his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and hacking her body into pieces. Defence counsel Akshay Bhandari was cross-examining Vikas Walkar on the basis of a video recording of his daughter and Poonawala talking to a psychologist.
“Are you aware that your daughter used to consume LSD? Is it within your knowledge that Shraddha had told the counsellor that you used to beat your wife, and therefore, she was disturbed?” the defence counsel asked. To the question “Did Shraddha ever talk to you as to why you used to beat your wife?” Walkar said, “I never spoke to my daughter about this.” Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey objected to the question, saying, “It was suggestive in nature as it contained an innuendo.”
A question posed by Bhandari about Shraddha failing in Class 7 due to “bad atmosphere at home” was disallowed by the court on the ground that the father could not be confronted with a recording of which he was not a part.
Bhandari then reframed the question as, “Is it within your knowledge that your daughter failed in Class 7 as there was a bad atmosphere at home as you used to beat your wife?” To this, he said, “My daughter had not failed in the class.” The counsel also asked the father whether he was aware that his daughter had a “hallucination problem,” to which he replied in the negative.