Aaftab Poonawala, the man accused of murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, used to apply make-up on the woman's severed head, police sources have said. The man had chopped the woman's body into 35 pieces and stored them in a refrigerator brought for this specific purpose. He stored the head also inside the appliance.
Poonawala, a call center employee and an Instagram food blogger, is in police custody. He reportedly told the police that he used to interact with the severed head and apply makeup on it. The police, however, aren't saying anything on this officially.
They said sharp-minded Aaftab is trying to prove himself insane by making these weird disclosures. They said it appears to be a carefully crafted strategy to escape with a lighter-than-deserved sentence from the court.
The police are roaming about with the accused in several locations across Delhi to recover the body parts of the woman. So far they have recovered a dozen parts. The murder weapon and the severed head, however, are missing.
The police also suspect that the man has been trying to mislead the police.
Aaftab and Walkar had gone to Himachal Pradesh in April where they met a Delhi-based man. They stayed at his house in Chhattarpur before renting their own in the Mehrauli area of the city. On May 18, within three days of moving in, Aaftab allegedly murdered her as she was pressing for them to get married.
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They used to have altercations as she allegedly believed he was having an affair with another woman.
After the murder, Aaftab stored the chopped body inside the fridge. Days after the murder, he reportedly brought a woman to the same flat and had sex. He met this woman on a dating application.
Shraddha and Poonawala had met in Mumbai via a dating application. They fell in love. However, their families didn't approve of their relationship. She was not on talking terms with her family which is why her murder remained undetected for six months.
Shraddha's father Vikas Walkar has accused Poonawala of waging what he called 'love jihad'.
