Aaftab Poonawala Kept Shraddha Walkar's Phone Months After Murder: Cops

Aaftab Poonawala, the prime accused in the Shraddha Walkar murder case, kept her phone with him for several months after the murder, police sources said, giving details on the brutal murder case that has shocked the country.

Aaftab Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha Walkar in a "fit of rage" in May this year and chopped up her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge before dumping body parts in a jungle near their rented flat in South Delhi's Mehrauli over several days.

After Shraddha Walkar's family filed a missing report with the police, Aaftab Poonawala was called to Mumbai for questioning. At the time, he reportedly carried Shraddha Walkar's phone to the city, sources said.

Later, Aaftab Poonawala dumped her phone in the sea, sources added.

Poonawala allegedly used a Chinese cleaver to chop Shraddha Walkar's body, sources said following his narco analysis test. Police have reportedly found many sharp weapons from Aftab's flat and also claim that he cut Shraddha Walkar's body into pieces with the same weapons.

The police is also investigating whether he purchased the weapons before May 18, the day he killed Shraddha Walkar.

Poonawala, 28, was arrested on November 12 after the woman's father, who had not spoken to her for almost a year as he was opposed to the couple's inter-faith (Hindu-Muslim) relationship, went to the cops as her friends told him she hadn't spoken to them too for months.

Right-wing Hindutva organisations and BJP leaders have alleged a communal angle to the crime, though the police haven't said any such thing. Men claiming to be from a Hindu outfit on Monday even attacked a police van carrying him and were arrested; no one was injured.