Aftab Poonawala, accused to have murdered his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, being brought to the Mehrauli forest area in New Delhi on November 15, 2022.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Delhi police on Thursday said they had so far recovered around 10 to 12 knives and other weapons, including a saw and blades, from the house of Aftab Poonawalla and the nearby Mehrauli forest in south Delhi’s Chattarpur, sources said.
A senior police officer said, “After extensive searches, we have recovered around 12 weapons from Aftab’s house and the forest. We have, however, not recovered the mini saw which Aftab used to chop Shraddha’s body into multiple pieces”.
The officer added that Aftab purportedly told investigators that he used multiple weapons to dismember Shraddha’s body. “We have recovered all kinds of objects that can possibly be used as a weapon by him including cleaver knifes, kitchen knives, hammers, blades among other items, and all of them were revealed after we took Aftab to his house over a period of several days to reconstruct the crime scene…we will further send them to the Forensic Science Laboratory [FSL],” the source said.
Also Read | Mehrauli murder: Aftab will kill me, cut me into pieces, Shraddha told Maharashtra police in 2020
Bought from local shop
Another investigator disclosed: “Aftab has said he used two mini-saw to chop Shraddha’s body, apart from other cleaver knives and sharp objects. He claimed that he bought all the weapons from a local shop near the area.”.
Students from the Gurukul Art School pay tribute to Shraddha Walker, who was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend Aftab Poonawala in Delhi.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Sources also stated that a team of the Delhi police has been sent to Mumbai to recover any bones or remains of Shraddha that Aftab might have dumped there. An officer said: “He [Aftab] came to Mumbai twice, once for questioning by the Mumbai police regarding Shraddha being missing and then later to help his parents in shifting from Vasai to Mira Road. He might have then brought her body parts with him and dumped her in forests in Mumbai”.
Meanwhile, Aftab on Thursday went through another round of polygraph test, said Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order, Zone 2) Sagar Preet Hooda. He was subjected to the first phase of the test on Tuesday, while he fell sick on Wednesday and hence could not undergo the test. Police said that once the polygraph test was finished, he would be subjected to the narco-analysis test at the FSL office in Rohini.
A source from the FSL said that Aftab’s polygraph test ended around 9 p.m. on Thursday. “He underwent the test for over 8 hours and we asked him questions related to his relationship with Shraddha, his family and childhood, among other crucial things,” a senior officer said.
Aftab had earlier told a court that he had committed the crime “in the heat of the moment” and that he would fully cooperate with the probe once he regains memory about the places where he dumped Shraddha’s body as it had been “a long time” and that “Delhi is a new city”.
Aftab, 28, is accused of strangulating 26-year-old Shraddha on May 18, chopping her body into multiple pieces and storing them in a fridge. He allegedly dumped the body parts in the Chhatarpur forest area over a period of three months.
