AFTAB Amin Poonawalla, who is in custody for the murder of his live-in partner Shraddha Walker, will undergo a ‘narco-analysis test’ after Delhi police officials informed a court that the prime suspect was trying to deceive the investigators through “misleading statements”.

According to Hindustan Times, a local court granted permission to the police to conduct the analysis which involves administration of “sodium pentothal”, also known as ‘truth serum’ into the bloodstream of the person undergoing the test.

Indian news agency ANI quoted a police officer saying the test could reveal if the accused was telling the truth. The police officer added that the test may also help police understand the mental state of the accused.

Earlier this week, Delhi police started an investigation into the murder of 28-year-old Walker, who was allegedly hacked into 35 pieces by Poonawalla in May this year. He was detained by the police on Nov 11 after the father of the slain girl submitted a missing persons report to the police, Times of India reported.

Ms Walker, who was reportedly not on good terms with her family due to her relationship, moved to south Delhi from Mumbai at the start of this year without the knowledge of her father, according to the Times of India report.

It was not until August that her father came to know that Ms Walker had moved to Delhi with her boyfriend. Vikas Walker eventually approached the police after a friend of his daughter informed him that his daughter had been missing for months, kicking off the entire probe.

The gruesome murder and the allegations levelled by the girl’s father also brought into focus the rampant Islamophobia prevailing in India, which is currently ruled by the hard line Bharatiya Janata.

According to ANI, Shraddha Walker’s father suspected that ‘love jihad’ — a conspiracy theory that blames Muslims for trying to forcibly convert Muslim women through seduction — was behind the murder of his daughter, as he demanded the death penalty for the accused.

Speaking to ANI, Mr Walker said, “ We demand that Aftab be sentenced to death. I have faith in the Delhi Police as the investigation is moving in the right direction. Shraddha was close to her uncle and didn’t talk to me much. I lodged the first complaint in the case at Vasai (Mumbai).

“I had spoken to Shraddha last in 2021. I would ask her to tell me more about her live-in partner. But she didn’t say much,” he added. Mr Poonawalla was detained by the police following the complaint and reportedly confessed to the murder. During investigations, the accused told police how he disposed of the body.

The suspect reportedly rented a flat in Chhatarpur, a locality in Delhi, and shifted there with Ms Walker days before her murder on May 18, an NDTV report quoted the police as saying. Initially, the suspect lied to police and said Ms Walker had stormed out with her phone after a quarrel.

However, police located her cell phone in their apartment and Poonawalla could not justify the phone’s location being traced to his house.

It was at this moment that “Aftab revealed the truth”, the Economic Times reported.

Poonawalla, claimed to have taken inspiration from crime shows and the murder of Anupama Gulati in Dehradun in 2010 in order to dispose of the body, which was hacked into pieces and stored in a “300 litre newly-bought refrigerator” for more than 18 days, the report added.

“Police said Aftab Poonawala bought a 300-litre fridge after he killed Shraddha Walker on May 18, and threw the pieces over 18 days in a jungle near [Delhi’s] Mehrauli,” NDTV quoted sources in the police as saying.

“The accused first disposed of her liver and intestines after mincing them. Since he was a trained chef, he knew how to use the knife on her flesh,” police said as reported by the Economic Times.

“He used to carry the body parts in a black foil but dispose [of] them without the foil in the forest, making it difficult to ascertain if the pieces were thrown by someone or were animal remains,” NDTV added.

It further reported, “Aftab Poonawalla used his girlfriend’s Instagram account to chat with her friends…But her friends grew suspicious and told her father, who had not spoken to her since last year, that she’d been inactive for months.”

As the probe inches forward, the police have recovered “about 12 body parts, suspected to be human…picked up by forensic experts … [to] be matched with the DNA samples of her father”.

So far, police have failed to recover the head of the slain girl and the murder weapons used.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2022