The grisly murder of a 26-year-old woman by her 28-year-old live-in partner in Delhi’s Mehrauli area has sent shock waves across the country. Aaftab Amin Poonawala - the accused - not just strangled Shraddha Walkar to death, but chopped her body into 35 parts and scattered them in different parts of the city over a period of 18 days.
As the ghastly details of the murder and psyche of the accused continue to emerge, we take a look at how the 28-year-old Aaftab, a resident of Vasai, portrayed himself on social media.
On Instagram, he ran a food blog account, which goes by the name hyngrychokro_escapades. The account has 28,500 followers and carries several high-resolution photos of many Indian and Chinese dishes.
However, the account is inactive since February 2022. The last time he posted on Instagram was on February 2, wherein he shared a photo of "Chocolate Squares loaded with cranberry". In his bio, Aaftab has described himself as a photographer, food & beverage consultant, and food photographer.
His Facebook feed also shows he visited several restaurants. However, he last posted on Facebook in January 2019. Here, he has portrayed himself as an LGBTQIA+ supporter, environmentalist, and liberal.
In 2015, Aaftab shared a post on Facebook in which a small girl is seen holding a placard reading: “This Diwali burst your ego not crackers”.
In 2017, Aaftab shared a post on Facebook to save Mumbai’s climate and save Aarey forest. Sharing the CHANGE.ORG post, he sought signatures for the petition to former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, current deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis to stop a Mumbai metro car shed in Aarey Forest and Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
In 2015, Poonawala shared a post on Facebook account by Bollywood actor John Abraham on stopping acid attacks against women. He also claimed to be a supporter of LGBTQ+ when he changed his profile picture to celebrate pride in June 2015. He added a rainbow filter to his picture on the social media platform.
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Aaftab completed his schooling from St Francis High School in Vasai and graduated with a BMS degree from LS Raheja College. He also studied hotel management and worked as a chef a few years ago. He had undergone a two-week training on how to cut meat, which he used to chop Walkar’s body.
Poonawala’s family friend said he is reserved by nature and he was confused about what to do in life. “But it is difficult to believe that he committed a gruesome murder,” he was quoted by Times by India as saying.
