NEW DELHI: During the trial of the sensational Shraddha Walkar murder case, the victim’s brother Shreejay Walkar testified against accused Aaftab Poonawala in Delhi’s Saket court on Thursday, saying the latter used to beat her and then apologise, persuading her to forgive the assaults.
As the court commenced recording the testimonies of witnesses in the case, in which Walkar was allegedly strangulated to death by her live-in-relationship partner Poonawalla on May 18 last year, Shreejay apprised the court that his sister told him that she and Aaftab used to fight a lot --verbal and physical.
The accused was claimed to have dismembered her body, kept it in a fridge, and disposed the pieces of in desolate pieces across the city over several days to dodge the police and the public. Many of her body
parts were discovered later in a nearby forest.
Shreejay Vikas Walkar, who was examined as a prosecution witness by the public prosecutor before Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar, testified his sister had left the house she inhabited with Poonawala in Mumbai after her family advised her against being in a relationship with him. Shraddha turned down the advice, asserting she was already 25 years of age and “could take her own decisions”. The two had met while working in a call centre in 2018-19, he told the court.
“She (Shraddha) said she wants to stay in a live-in relationship with Poonawala. We tried to counsel her. However, it appeared that she was under the influence of the accused and left her house…and shifted to rented accommodation in Naigaon (Mumbai),” Shreejay said.
“After every such incident, Poonawala would apologise to her for the fight and the physical beating and she would condone it and continue to live with him…After my mother’s death, we tried to counsel her (again), but she did not agree to leave Poonawala,” Shreejay said. He said the family’s contact with Shraddha subsequently tapered off as “we understood that she is completely under the influence of the accused”. Besides Shreejay, two other important witnesses-- an auto driver and a neighbour of Shraddha’s-- were presented before the court.