Mehrauli murder chargesheet: Aaftab disfigured Shraddha's face, powdered her bones

According to the chargesheet, Poonawala had burnt and disfigured the victim's head and torso using a blow torch and turned her bones into powder using a marble grinder.

Aaftab Poonawala, accused of killing his partner Shraddha Walkar, being brought to his residence at Chhatarpur as part of the ongoing investigation. (File Photo |PTI)

NEW DELHI: The chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police in the gruesome Mehrauli murder has revealed several details about how Aaftab Poonawala, who has been accused of killing his partner Shraddha Walker, tried to dispose of her body. 

According to the 6,636-page chargesheet filed by the Delhi police, Poonawala had burnt and disfigured the victim's head and torso using a blow torch and turned her bones into powder using a marble grinder. 

The chargesheet was filed 73 days after Aaftab was arrested on Nov. 12, 2022, six months after he had allegedly committed the heinous crime.

Poonawala, 28, allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar on May 18 last year and sawed her body into several pieces which he kept in a fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Chattarpur locality.

The chargesheet, accessed by TNIE, revealed the extent of the barbarity of the crime. "To get rid off Shraddha, once in all, I sat on her chest and choked her till the time she was dead. Then I hid her body in the bathroom and planned to dispose it of by chopping it into several pieces for which I bought a saw, three blades and a hammer from a shop in Chattarpur Pahadi," the confession of accused Aaftab in the chargesheet read.

Aftab stated that he had been possessive in nature and used to have frequent fights with Shraddha. "Sometimes I even used to beat her and Shraddha even complained to the Mumbai Police one time."

It was due to this strained relationship, the couple planned a backpacking trip and left Mumbai around March 28-29, 2022, and reached Haridwar. From there, they went to Rishikesh, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Manali, Chandigarh and ultimately reached Parvati valley where they met a boy named Badri. The couple already knew Badri through the Bumble app and later Badri invited them to Delhi.

The couple reached Delhi on May 5 and stayed in Badri's house at Chattarpur Pahadi for a period of 10-12 days. But even after returning from a month-long trip, there was hardly any change in their fractious relationship. "As we regularly fought, Badri asked us to leave the house and then I contacted a broker and we shifted to a flat on the first floor of the Chattarpur Pahari area," the chargesheet read.

After strangling his live-in partner to death on May 18, the accused Aaftab bought all the tools and then first chopped the hands of the victim and kept them in a polythene bag in the bathroom.

On May 19,  Aaftab bought trash bags, a knife and a chopper and a new refrigerator worth Rs 25,000. Upon returning home, the accused continued to chop the remains of Shraddha's body. "In the evening, I chopped her ankles and legs till her knees, put them in the trash bag and preserved the remaining body in the newly bought refrigerator," the chargesheet read.

Later he ordered several disinfectant bottles from Blinkit, an online delivery service, to clean the blood that had splattered all over the place.

Two days after the murder, the accused continued his chopping spree and cut the body parts into 17 small pieces. He then proceeded to take out the intestines and viscera from Shraddha's body, packed them into a polythene bag and threw them in a dustbin somewhere close to his house. Aaftab preserved Shraddha's head, torso and both wrists in the refrigerator and gradually began disposing of the remaining body parts.

As per the chargesheet, Aaftab burnt the victim's fingers with a blowtorch and disposed of them along the 60-foot road near Chattarpur Pahadi. He then proceeded to discard her thighs and pelvis in the forest area near a graveyard, a thumb from her hand near a wall close to Dhan Mill, a thigh in a forest area near Gurugram's MG road and more parts of her body near a jungle opposite Rain Basera Chattarpur enclave.

Aaftab burnt the victim's remaining body parts using petrol and took back the bones and turned them into powder using a marble grinder. 

Fearing that his crime might not remain hidden, Poonawala preserved the victim's torso, head and both forearms for several months in his refrigerator.

"Three to four months after the murder, I burnt the head with a blowtorch and disposed of it along with forearms and torso in the forest area," the chargesheet added.

Meanwhile, the Saket Court on Tuesday took cognisance of the Delhi Police's chargesheet and listed the matter for its scrutiny on February 21.