The Delhi Police on Saturday got hold of a CCTV footage of Aftab Poonawala of October 18 (last month) when he is seen carrying a bag which cops believe has victim Shraddha Walkar’s body parts. The police is said to have also recovered three more bones in the Mehrauli forest that could reportedly belong to the victim.
Meanwhile, the police team that is in Palghar for further investigation of the case has recorded the statements of Rahul Roy and Godwin — two of Shraddha’s friends. The team is also trying to trace Aftab’s family but their whereabouts are yet to be found.
The CCTV footage shows Aftab carrying a bag and moving out of a lane near his house in Chattarpur, Mehrauli.
Although it’s difficult to see his face, police, however, have claimed that the man in the footage is Aftab. This is the first visual CCTV footage that has come to light. The Delhi Police sources said they will interrogate Aftab in connection with the CCTV footage and if he was carrying the dismembered body parts of Shraddha.
A Delhi Police team is in Manikpur in Palghar district’s Vasai, which is the native area of the victim and where the couple had stayed before shifting to the national Capital. As per the police official, Walkar had sought their assistance in 2020 after she was beaten up by Aftab near Vasai, and the duo had helped her at the time.
Giving details of these two witnesses, the official said one of them is a rickshaw driver and the other is currently unemployed. The four-member Delhi Police team, which landed in Mumbai on Friday, had earlier recorded the statement of Shraddha’s friend Laxman Nadar, the official said.
The Delhi Police has also recovered a sharp object from Aftab’s flat which it suspects may have been used to chop Shraddha’s body.
As for the latest recovery in Mehrauli forest, sources said the police have found a big bone that appeared to be like a femur bone (also called the thigh bone, which is the longest bone of the body) during searches. They found bones like radius-ulna (bone between the wrist and elbow), patella (knee cap) and a femur.
Sources said the recovered bones have cut marks. They said they were cut with a big sharp weapon. However, police officers are unsure if the bones were Shraddha’s. Police said the picture will be clear only after the Forensic Science Laboratory investigation
The police have also taken possession of all the clothes from accused Aftab’s house in South Delhi and they will be sent for forensic examination. Sources further added that police have not recovered the clothes the two were wearing on May 18, the day the crime was executed. “The police has taken possession of all the clothes present in Aftab’s house. These include Shraddha’s clothes too. They will be sent for forensic examination,” sources said. On Saturday, the Delhi Police searched for the murder weapon at a forest in Gurugram using a metal detector, but returned empty-handed after one-and-a-half-hours.
Meanwhile, the narco analysis test of the accused is most likely expected at Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini on Monday. A team of Delhi Police has also contacted Shraddha’s friends in Mumbai and recorded the statements.
After allegedly strangling his live-in partner Shraddha, 26, Aftab chopped her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his house in Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight. The police have so far recovered 13 body parts, which are mostly skeletal remains. Aftab is being taken to different locations in south Delhi to locate more body parts, the source said.
According to sources, the police on Friday recovered some body parts from Gurugram, which will also be sent for forensic examination. The victim’s head is still missing. They also said the police have recovered a sharp object from his house and it will be examined whether it was used to chop her body.
The Delhi Police had on Friday sent teams to Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to hunt for evidence in the case, with sleuths recovering some body parts in Gurugram.
