BY ARSHAD R. ZARGAR
An Indian man allegedly killed his live-in partner six months ago and chopped her body into dozens of pieces, police in the Indian capital New Delhi said on Monday. The suspect reportedly kept the body parts in a refrigerator and disposed of them in a forest, piece by piece, over the span of three weeks.
Aftab Ameen Poonawala, 28, was arrested by the Delhi Police on Saturday on charges of murdering his 26-year-old girlfriend, Shraddha Walker.
The couple, originally from Mumbai, had not known each for long. They met earlier this year through the dating site Bumble, Ankit Chauhan, a senior police officer in Delhi, told CBS News.
But when their families didn’t approve of their relationship — apparently because of their different religious identities — they moved to the Indian capital city around the end of April or beginning of May, police said.
The couple started living together in a rented apartment in the Mehrauli area of South Delhi, police said.
“In mid-May, he killed the girl seemingly when an argument escalated… he strangled her and cut the body into several pieces,” Chauhan told CBS News.
According to Indian news reports citing police sources, the alleged killer, a food blogger, purchased a 300-liter refrigerator to store dozens of the victim’s body parts before taking three weeks to dispose of the parts one at a time in the middle of the night in a nearby forest.
Although Chauhan told CBS News that the “motive is not yet clear, the investigation is still ongoing, more details will emerge soon,” some Indian news reports claimed that Poonawala killed Walker after she began pressuring him to get married.
Poonawala has been in police custody for five days and is anticipated to undergo further questioning.
After leaving her Mumbai home and beginning to live with her partner, Walker allegedly lost contact with her parents. However, one of her friends let her family know in September that her phone had been off for two months.
Vikash Madan Walker, the girl’s father, subsequently went to the Mumbai police and reported his daughter missing. Her last known phone location was in Delhi, so the Mumbai police transferred the case to Delhi police.
The girl’s father in Delhi informed the police of his daughter’s liaison with Poonawala. He was apprehended at that point, according to police, and admitted to the murder.
