Shraddha Walkar“I am 25-years-old now and I have every right to make my own decisions. I want to be in a live-in relationship with Aaftab Poonawala. So, you may think that I am not your daughter from today.” These were the last words Shraddha Walkar told her parents while leaving her Mumbai home in 2019, as per an FIR filed on the basis of her father’s complaint. On May 18, Shraddha was murdered, allegedly by Aaftab, who chopped her body into over 30 pieces and disposed of them over three months.
Ever since their confrontation in 2019, the relationship between Shraddha and her family had been “strained”, and they hardly ever saw each other. Her parents were separated, and her mother died in 2020.
Aaftab Poonawala “She was not in touch with her family. Her father became concerned when he couldn’t get in touch with her for months, and her friends informed him the same thing. It was then that he approached police (in October) and filed a missing person complaint,” said an officer.
The FIR, based on the father’s complaint, suggests Shraddha and Aaftab’s inter-faith relationship was a sticking point. “My daughter told my wife in the year 2019 that she wants to be in a live-in relationship with Aaftab Poonawala… my wife and I told her not to, because I am Hindu and… that boy is Muslim. We don’t do inter-religion/inter-caste marriage…,” reads the FIR.
According to the FIR, Shraddha then told her parents that she had decided to stay with Aaftab, and left her house with her belongings. According to police, she later contacted her parents separately and told them Aaftab had been violent, and while her parents asked her to leave him, she did not.
Police sources also said Aaftab’s Google search history revealed he had looked up ways to destroy evidence and clean bloodstains.
“He looked for things like ‘how to clean blood?’, ‘how to get rid of body’, among other things. He then bought a fridge from a nearby shop for Rs 19,000. Within two days, he bought incense sticks, acid, disinfectants and other things to mask the smell and clean the house,” said a source.
During interrogation, he claimed that on the day of the incident, Shraddha saw him exchanging messages with someone on the phone, which led to the fatal fight.