For Aaftab Poonawala, Top Security Day After Sword Attack On Police Van

Aaftab Poonawala, accused of murdering his girlfriend Shraddha Walkar in a horrific case in Delhi, was taken to the forensic lab from Tihar Jail for another round of polygraph test around 8.30 am today amid heightened security after an attack on the van carrying him last evening.

Besides jail security and police, paramilitary personnel were also deployed carrying state-of-the-art weapons, sources said. The number of cops from the Delhi Police Third Battalion, which is tasked with transporting inmates, has also gone up, it is learnt.

On Monday evening, when Aaftab Poonawala was being taken back to the jail from the lab at Rohini, a group of sword-wielding men in a car intercepted the police van and charged towards it.

No one was injured as the police fired in the air and managed to catch two of the attackers, who were today sent to judicial custody. They are Nigam Gujjar and Kuldeep Thakur, who claim they are members of a right wing group called Hindu Sena.

Some Hindu right-wing organisations and political leaders have been alleging a communal angle to the crime, though police haven't said any such thing. 

Aaftab Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha Walkar after yet another argument — they reportedly had a toxic relationship for over two years — and cut her body into 35 pieces which he dumped in the forest near the flat they shared in Delhi's Mehrauli. Both belonged to a Maharashtra town and the murder from May came to light only in November as Shraddha's father, who'd not been in touch with her over her inter-faith (Hindu-Muslim) relationship, went to the cops after her friends told him she'd been out of touch with them too.