Shraddha Walkar’s WhatsApp chats and Instagram chats with friends and colleagues from two years ago suggest that she was once badly beaten by her boyfriend Aftab Poonawala – now accused of killing her in Delhi – so much so that she couldn’t get out of bed and police sources today said she was later hospitalized.
Investigators said these conversations were from when they lived together in their hometown of Vasai near Mumbai, and revealed a pattern of abuse that led to the murders in May this year.
“I won’t be able to make it to today because of all the beatings yesterday, my blood pressure is low and my body aches. I don’t have the strength to get out of bed,” she wrote to the public manager. her work in a WhatsApp chat, attaching a photo of her wound-covered face. Screenshots of chats are currently with the Delhi Police and corroborated by her admission to the hospital around the same time.
WhatsApp chat screenshots from police sources showing Shraddha’s conversation with a friend.
She told the manager she needed to “make sure he (Aftab) moves out today” and mentioned having spoken to his parents in conversation since November 24, 2018. 2020, which suggests that they may have broken up in the middle.
Showing injuries, the photo Shraddha Walkar shared with a friend in November 2020.
The manager asked for her “husband’s name”, which indicates that she had told her office that they were married. “Don’t worry. We’re all with you,” the friend replied, telling her he could also ask his mother and sister for help.
During an Instagram chat with a friend, when Shraddha shared a photo to show off her new hairstyle, the friend recognized the injuries. Shraddha said her nose was broken because she “stumbled while climbing the stairs”.
An Instagram chat in which a friend noticed Shraddha’s nose wound.
About a week later, She was in a private hospital in Vasai from December 3 to 6, records show. The doctor there said Shraddha was “only internal injuries” at the time. The hospital report listed “severe back pain, nausea, neck pain, difficulty moving the neck, tingling and numbness in the lower extremities”. She didn’t go there for a follow-up.
Rahul Rai, her friend, said he accompanied her to the police and hospital. “He (Aftab) attacked her two or three times. There was a deep mark on her neck, as if he had tried to strangle her. The police convinced Shraddha to go home even though she was very scared. “, said Mr. Rai.
Her friends have now told police that she regularly suffered domestic violence at the hands of Aftab.
“She kept saying she was going to leave Aftab. But she didn’t,” said Rajat Shukla, her college friend, who told NDTV about her SOS months before she was killed. , said. “She was physically abused. She told her best friend. Since we were part of the same group of friends, we were told the same thing.”
Shraddha, 26, and Aftab, 28, both call center workers, moved to Delhi in May and four days later, after another argument over costs and infidelity, he strangled him. left her to die, then cut the body into 35 pieces, which he kept in a refrigerator and disposed of in the woods for more than 18 days, police said.
The crime was revealed in the past month when her father – who has not spoken to her since May 2021 because he does not approve of her interreligious (Hindu-Muslim) relationship with Aftab – went to the police when her friends alerted him that she too had lost contact with them for months.
Aftab, on November 17, was sent by a Delhi court for another 5 days to police custody because the police said important evidence – such as identifiable body parts, the knife he had used, their clothes from the day of the murder and Shraddha’s phone – needs to be found.
The police also have permission to conduct drug analysisa chemical-based lie detector test, which could help corroborate his alleged confession.
