Shraddha Murder Case: Aaftab Undergoes Polygraph Test, Blood Stains Found in Their Flat

GG News Bureau

New Delhi, 23rd Nov. Aaftab Amin Poonawala, accused of murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, underwent a polygraph test on Tuesday evening after a city court granted permission to Delhi Police, and investigators found more evidence, including blood stains, in the flat where both lived.

Following the polygraph test, police are likely to conduct a narco analysis, as permitted by the court last week.

Police have not found Walkar’s severed head or other body parts and are hoping to find clues to recover key evidence, such as the murder weapon, to strengthen their case.

According to sources, the accused told police during questioning that he dumped the weapon and tools used to chop Walkar’s body into 35 pieces at the DLF Phase III forest area in Gurgaon after May.

Experts began the polygraph test on the accused on Tuesday evening. According to a senior FSL official, the polygraph test process takes time. Depending on how things go, it could last a day or two.

“We have initiated the process for conducting the polygraph test. A questionnaire is also set and will be asked. The duration of the test also depends on how many breaks are taken during the procedure,” he added.

Poonawala was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla at the end of his five-day police custody, and his custody was extended by four days.

Police requested an extension of his detention on the grounds that more body parts and weapons can be recovered as a result of his disclosures.

It also informed the court that a rough site plan was found at the accused’s home, which may aid in the search and interrogation, and that the accused will be required to connect the chain of events in the crime.

“Do you know what you have done?” the judge asked Poonawala, said his legal aid counsel Abinash Kumar, narrating the proceedings. “And he said everything happened in the heat of the moment, and it was not deliberate,” the defence counsel said.

Later the counsel said that he spoke to Poonawala for “five-seven minutes today”.

“When I spoke to him in the morning, he appeared relaxed and was very confident. He did not show any signs of aggressiveness,” he said.

The lawyer said when he asked Poonawala if he is able to follow the legal proceedings in the case and if he was satisfied with the defence, he replied in the affirmative. “He has never confessed in the court of law that he killed Walkar,” Kumar told PTI.

According to police sources, important clues have been found from the bathroom tiles of Poonawala’s flat here after a forensic team broke the bathroom tiles and found blood stains on them.

The recovered tiles have been sent for DNA examination to ascertain whether those blood stains are of Walkar and the report is expected within two weeks.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora visited the DCP(South) office in Hauz Khas to review the progress of the investigation in the case.

“We will try to conduct the narco and polygraph tests within four days. Multiple agencies have been working on the case and we will file a collective report in the court. The charge sheet will be filed on the basis of forensic evidence.

“We have to join the dots on the evidence collected so far. We cannot conclude the investigation based on the confession by the accused,” said a senior police officer, after the meeting with Arora.

Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi’s Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight. The murder occurred in May.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed with costs a PIL that sought directions to transfer the Walkar murder investigation from Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), terming it a ‘publicity interest litigation’. PTI inputs