Delhi murder: Poonawala took tips from TV shows, Walkar kept to herself

Nothing on Aaftab Amin Poonawala’s profile on social media platforms appears to suggest that he could one day be locked up inside a Delhi police station, arrested for allegedly murdering his girlfriend and hacking her body into at least 35 pieces

Aaftab Amin Poonwala and Shraddha Walkar met on a dating app in 2019. They moved in together in Mumbai within a few months, went on a trip to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand earlier this year, and then shifted to Delhi. Both sets of parents were, however, disapproved of the inter-faith relationship. Still, there was nothing to suggest the relationship would end up in one of the most gruel murders Delhi has seen.

Aaftab Poonawala and Shraddha Walkar. (HT Photo)

Aaftab Amin Poonawala

Nothing on Aaftab Amin Poonawala’s profile on social media platforms appears to suggest that he could one day be locked up inside a Delhi police station, arrested for allegedly murdering his girlfriend and hacking her body into at least 35 pieces.

Poonawala’s Facebook profile shows he has an interest in body-building, followed football clubs Arsenal and Chelsea, liked television shows such as House of Cards and Bigg Boss, and played video games such as Fast and Furious and Injustice.

The Delhi Police on Monday said the man told them during his interrogation that he had taken tips from television shows, especially Dexter, on ways to dispose of a human body. “He is very fluent in English and appears to be calm even in custody. He said he had done a course in hotel management and interned at a top luxury hotel’s kitchen in Mumbai. He also says he is a freelance photographer and food blogger,” said a police officer, who asked not to be named.

Poonawala’s public posts on Facebook include one in support of acid attack victims and a Change.org petition to seek signatures to save trees in Aarey forest in Mumbai from being cut down for the Metro car shed.

Poonawala, who studied at St Francis High School in Vasai and graduated with a bachelors’ degree in management studies from LS Raheja College in Mumbai, ran a food blogging enterprise named Hungry Chokro Escapades, with accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The posts were all about eateries and dishes. They started with his hometown in Vasai but soon moved to Mumbai.

“He told us he is a trained chef but he was not working as one in Delhi. He was working at a call centre in Gurugram and earned around ₹52,000 per month,” the police officer said.

By Monday afternoon, people found his Instagram page and started posting hate messages over the alleged brutal crime. The man’s Instagram account shows he last updated it on February 2, from Vasai, Maharashtra, about a month or two before he left Maharashtra with his girlfriend, Shraddha, whom he allegedly murdered on May 18.

Shraddha Walkar

Shraddha Walkar appears to have been a very private person, with not much of an online footprint. Her last Facebook post was from the Garden Cafe in Baijnath, Himachal Pradesh, where she uploaded a photo of herself reading a book. The Delhi Police have said that the woman, who lived with her mother until 2019, moved out of the house and started living with Poonawala. The two met on Bumble, an online dating app, according to Delhi Police. Her father told the police that she left home sometime in 2019 when they objected to her relationship with Poonawala because of their different faiths.

“Her mother passed away in January 2020. Earlier, she lived with her mother. Her father lived in a different house. The murder could have not gone unnoticed all these months if she was in regular touch with her family. She had stopped communicating with her father for almost a year. For almost four months, no one suspected anything amiss, until one of her brother’s friends realised she wasn’t available on the phone for months and informed her father,” said a second police officer.