‘Aaftab booked packing service two weeks after alleged killing’
Investigators from the Delhi Police recorded the statements of Good Luck Packers and Movers in Mumbai’s Mira road on Sunday
NEW DELHI: Receipts from a home relocation company show Aaftab Poonawala, who is accused of murdering his partner Shraddha Walkar in May in Delhi, booked a consignment from his Mumbai residence to the Capital, officials said as they attempt to piece together the sequence of events around a crime that has yielded little evidence till now.
Investigators from the Delhi Police’s Mehrauli station recorded the statements of Good Luck Packers and Movers in Mumbai’s Mira road on Sunday, according to people aware of the matter.
Among the information that officers were looking for were any clues to the contents of the 37 packages that were sent days after the purported murder, who paid the ₹20,000 bill and whether the consignment was sent to the Chhattarpur home where the couple lived or to another location in Delhi.
Poonawala, during his questioning, is understood to have told investigators that the payment for the relocation was one of the subjects of their fights, which people who knew the couple said would often include physical assaults.
Walkar’s remains have not yet been confirmed to have been found, but police are analysing bones they picked up from certain sites in and around Mehrauli and Chhattarpur, where Poonawala reportedly told the police that he disposed off the body after dismembering it into 35 pieces.
According to local police in Manikpur in Mumbai who were part of the questioning, the statements of Jayshree Patkar, the owner of the flat at Regal Apartments in Mumbai where Poonawala and Walkar lived together in 2021, was also questioned. Patkar told police that she received several complaints from neighbours about there being constant fights between the couple.
Apart from Patkar, police also recorded statements of two others – the Unique Park apartments neighbourhood society chairman Ram Das Kevat and secretary Abdullah
Khan.
Poonawala lived with his parents at Unique Apartments before he met Walkar. The members told police that Poonawala often came to stay with his parents when he had fights with his partner, when the couple stayed in Naigaon and Vasai from 2019 to April 2021.