Aftab Poonawala Narco Test Within 5 Days, He Gave Consent In Court

Aftab Ameen Poonawala, who is accused of murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and hacking her body into pieces in a crime that has stunned the country, will be presented for a narco analysis test within five days, a court in Delhi said on Friday.

The court had allowed Delhi Police to conduct the test on Poonawala and question him for five more days in its custody a day ago.

The Delhi Police had sought the narco test of the 28-year-old, who was produced virtually, with investigators probing the case saying it was necessary since he was changing his statements and not cooperating in the probe into the brutal killing of his Shraddha Walkar.

Metropolitan Magistrate Vijayshree Rathore allowed the police to conduct the narco test, also known as the truth serum test, after noting that the accused had given his consent, Poonawala's advocate Abinash Kumar said.

Police had filed the application after his arrest on November 12.

Poonawala strangled Walkar, 27, on May 18 and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight, according to the police.

The saw was allegedly bought from a shop on the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road, police sources said.

Investigators are likely to take help from other police districts in Delhi and will take Poonawala to locations like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to establish the sequence of events leading to the murder of Walkar, police sources said.

After leaving Mumbai, Walkar and Poonawala had travelled to several locations and police will visit these places with the accused to ascertain whether something had happened on those trips to trigger the murder, the sources said.

Police have also traced the garbage van in which Poonawala had disposed of his bloodstained clothes, besides recovering an unpaid water bill of Rs 300 and some food bills, they said.