NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Monday played the recording of Shraddha Walkar, who was allegedly strangulated to death by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala, before the court. There are “incriminating circumstances revealed through reliable and clinching evidence ,which form a chain of events”, police told before Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar of Saket court, who was hearing the arguments on charges against Poonawala, accused of killing and chopping Shraddha’s body into several pieces. Special Public Prosecutors (SPP) Amit Prasad and Madhukar Pandey appeared for the Delhi Police. Aftab was produced in court.
The father of the deceased was also present during the hearing of the matter. Poonawala has been booked for the offences under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC. Referring to two SC judgments of 2011 and 2004, the SPP argued “it is immaterial whether the case is based on direct or circumstantial evidence” and that “the charges can be framed if there are materials showing possibility about the commission of the crime as against certainty”.
The SPP underlined several relevant circumstances that connected Poonawala to the offences, including the live-in relationship of Poonawala and Walkar, which had a “violent past”, the couple’s continuous living together and last seen together, and Walkar’s complete disappearance, following which only traces of digital visibility was created, and the pattern of purchase of Poonawala after May 18.
According to the charge sheet, Poonawala 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 Mehrauli locality. The SPP further said that “credible recoveries” of the deceased’s bones, jaw, hair and blood were made. While the blood was matched using DNA profiling, the jaw was identified by a dentist and the use of a saw on the bones was confirmed by a medical opinion from the AIIMS.
The ring worn by Walkar and as seen in the Practo App was given to another woman, who had produced it before the investigating agency, he said. Noting that Poonawala’s previous advocate had handed over the digital copy of the chargesheet to the accused’s present Legal Aid Counsel Advocate Javed Hussain on Tuesday and that Hussain sought time to go through the content, ASJ Kakkar posted the matter for the LAC’s response on March 25.