₹54k transfer week after Shraddha went missing turned tide in probe
MUMBAI: For days after allegedly killing his girlfriend Shraddha Walkar, Aaftab Amin Poonawala continued to cover his tracks by posting from her social media accounts, texting her friends from her cellphone, and even telling investigators in late October that she had stormed out of their rented Delhi flat after a fight on May 22.
However, Poonawala’s statement earlier in November about an online transaction he made from Walkar’s phone over a week after she had purportedly left home was his first slip-up, and gave police a vital foothold in the investigation, Maharashtra Police officers aware of the case said.
Poonawala, 28, and Walkar, 27, moved from Vasai in Maharashtra to Delhi in the second week of May. On May 18, three days after they shifted to a rented flat in Chhattarpur Pahadi, Poonawala allegedly strangled Walkar to death, dismembered her body into 35 pieces, and stored the pieces in a refrigerator, before disposing of the body parts over three months, Delhi Police officers have said, citing Poonawala’s disclosure statement.
To be sure, Poonawala’s alleged confession before the police is not admissible as evidence in court.
Officers in Mumbai questioning Poonawala said that when he was first asked about Walkar’s whereabouts on October 26, he said that she stormed out of their house on May 22 after an argument. Her phone, police found, was switched off since May 31 (and no call was made or received since May 26).
“Poonawala said Walkar left her clothes and other belongings in the house and took only her cellphone with her. However, later on, during investigations we found an online transaction, conducted sometime between May 22 and May 26, in which ₹54,000 was transferred from Walkar’s account to Poonawala’s through a net banking app,” said a Maharashtra Police officer part of the questioning who asked not to be named. The location of her phone during the transaction was narrowed down to Chhattarpur, said the officers, despite Poonawala’s claims that she had left home with the device.
The police said that, during interrogations on November 11, a day before being arrested, he was asked about the transaction, at which point he “slipped up”.
“He said that he knew her passwords and made the transaction himself, since she owed him money,” the officer said. This contradicted his previous statement to the police, that she had taken her phone along.
Poonawala was confronted with an earlier statement where he claimed that Walkar had taken her phone while leaving the house. The officer said that, at this point, a “cornered Poonawalla saw no way out of this, and confessed”.
How the case unravelled
After Walkar’s father submitted an application to the Manikpur police, stating that he was unable to contact his daughter, police on October 12 registered a first information report (FIR), and after checking Pooanwala and Walkar’s call detail records, found that no call was made or received on her mobile phone since May.
“On October 26, Poonawala came to Mumbai and gave a verbal statement, saying he was not in touch with Shraddha after she left home,” said sub-inspector Sachin Sanap of the Manikpur police station.
After the police found Poonawala’s statement unsatisfactory, they went through Walkar’s bank statements and phone records, and found that -- apart from the bank transaction -- there was an Instagram chat from her account with her friend Lakshman Nadar on May 31. The location from where Walkar’s responses were sent was traced to Chhattarpur in Delhi.
“We then called Poonawala again on November 3, and recorded his statement. He was so confident at this time that he even offered to lodge a missing person’s complaint with the Delhi Police, saying he himself was concerned about Walkar’s whereabouts,” Sanap said.
That confidence, police officers said, vanished in the days that followed as he was confronted with the discrepancy in the story, and he eventually confessed to killing Walkar in a fit of rage.
Officers said that hours after his arrest on November 12, Poonawalla came face-to-face with Vikas Walkar, who was in Delhi to track his daughter’s case.
An officer said that as police led him away, Poonawala said, “Mujhe maaf kar do, mujhse galati ho gayi (I am sorry, I have made a mistake).”
The suspect has not made a public statement so far.
AAFTAB POONAWALA’S STATEMENT ABOUT A TRANSACTION HE MADE FROM WALKAR’S PHONE, OVER A WEEK AFTER SHE PURPORTEDLY LEFT HOME, WAS HIS FIRST SLIP-UP, SAID MUMBAI POLICE