Fresh searches held across the Capital over Shraddha murder case
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Sunday conducted fresh searches across the city, including the forest areas of Chhattarpur and the locality where the accused in the Mehrauli murder case Aaftab Poonawala and Shraddha Walkar used to live, officials said.
The police have scaled up the searches in Mehrauli and at Poonawala’s flat in a bid to recover remaining parts of Walkar’s body and the murder weapon, as his custody remand expires on Tuesday.
According to official sources, a Delhi Police team is also conducting searches in the forest areas of Gurgaon near the office where Poonawala used to work earlier.
A separate team visited the flat where they lived to collect evidence as part of the ongoing investigation, police officials said.
While the permission for Poonawala’s narco test has come, investigators are running against time to get it conducted.
The test will be conducted at Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital here in Rohini, most likely on Monday as Poonawala’s fiveday police custody ends the next day.
Poonawala allegedly strangled Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his house in Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight.
The Delhi Police had on Friday sent teams to Maharashtra, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to hunt for evidence in the case.
According to officials, after leaving Mumbai, Walkar and Poonawala had travelled to several locations, including Himachal Pradesh, and police are visiting these places to ascertain whether any development during those trips triggered Poonawala to kill his partner.
In another development, the Delhi police team on Sunday recorded the statement of the secretary of a housing society where the accused Aftab Amin Poonawalla lived with his family. According to official sources, the Delhi police team recorded the statement of Abdullah Khan, the secretary of the Unique Park Housing Society of Vasai area of Palghar district, for more than an hour on Sunday.
“The police questioned Khan for more than an hour, and recorded his statement in connection to the Shraddha murder case,” said official sources with Manikpur police.
In his statement, Khan told the police that Aftab’s family had vacated their house about 20 days ago, and have rented it out.
Khan however said that he has no idea about where Aftab’s family went, and also shared their contact number, which was found switched off, they added.
Delhi police have called many people including friends and relatives of Shraddha and Aftab in connection to the case and their statements were being recorded, said sources.