Aaftab had threatened to kill Shradha in 2020, letter in police file shows

Mumbai: In the latest twist in the tale of the Shraddha Walkar murder case, a letter has surfaced that Shraddha allegedly wrote in 2020 at the Tulinj police station in Maharashtra’s Palghar, in which she complained that Aaftab Poonawala, the accused in her murder case, had beaten her and threatened to kill her.

The letter in question has reportedly been shared by Shraddha’s neighbour in Vasai with whom Shraddha had gone to file the complaint. The Maharashtra police have confirmed that the deceased had written a complaint letter on November 23, 2020, at the Tulinj police station.

In the complaint letter, Shraddha said that she “did not have the guts to go to the police” because Aaftab had threatened to kill her. However, she added that Aaftab tried to kill her on the day she was writing the letter, and he also threatened to kill her and cut her into pieces and throw her away.

“It’s been six months he has been hitting me,” the letter read.

The letter further claimed that Aaftab’s parents were aware that he beat her up and that he tried to kill her.

“I lived with him till date as we were supposed to get married anytime soon and had the blessings of his family. Henceforth, I am not willing to live with him. So any kind of physical damage should be considered coming from him as he has been blackmailing me to kill me or hurt me whenever he sees me anywhere,” the letter read.

The letter surfaces a day after Aaftab on Tuesday told a Delhi court that he murdered his girlfriend in the “heat of the moment”.

Aaftab was produced before the Saket court in the national capital on Tuesday after his five-day police custody expired.

“What happened that happened in heat of the moment,” Aaftab told the court.

Meanwhile, a court-sanctioned polygraphy test on Aaftab was initiated in the national capital on Tuesday.

The assistant director of the Forensic Science Laboratory, Rohini, Sanjeev Gupta said the process of conducting a polygraph test on Aaftab has begun and the report will be out in a week’s time.

Delhi Police had previously said Aaftab, following his arrest in the case, confessed to killing his live-in partner in their apartment in South Delhi’s Chhatarpur and chopping her body into 35 pieces.

Subsequent interrogation of the accused revealed that Aaftab killed Shraddha on May 18 after which he started researching ways to dispose of the body.