Mehrauli murder case: Aftab Poonawala's police custody extended for five more days
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Nov, 2022 12:51 PM
New Delhi, Nov 17 (IANS) A Delhi court on Thursday extended, by five more days, the police custody to Aftab Ameen Poonawalla, who has been arrested for allegedly murdering his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and chopping her body into 35 pieces.
Poonawalla was produced virtually before the Saket district court after the court took note of the threats to his life and security reasons.
A large group of lawyers protested outside a courtroom demanding the death penalty for the accused.
On Wednesday, the court approved a narco test of Poonawalla on Delhi Police's submission that he was not cooperating in the investigation.
A day earlier, the police had also taken him to the house in south Delhi's Chhattarpur, which he shared with Walkar, to recreate the crime. Sources have said that when Poonawalla was first called for questioning, he told the investigators that she had left the house on May 22.
"However, her belongings were at the house while Poonwalla told police that she had only taken her phone. He also said that they did not speak to each other since she left," a source said.
The investigators doubted his version and on strong questioning and through digital evidences, including the use of her Instagram account, which showed the location of the Mehrauli area, Poonawalla finally confessed to killing the victim and then chopping her body into 35 pieces and was arrested on November 12.
While briefing the officers, the DGP said the topmost priority of the government, as directed by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, is to further strengthen the fight against drugs to make Punjab a drug-free state, besides eliminating the gangster culture, maintaining law and order, and detection of crime.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur announced Rs 5 lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased, whereas Rs 15,000 as immediate relief for the injured. He said free treatment would be provided to the injured.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday carried out his first Cabinet expansion by inducting five legislators, including second-time MLA Aman Arora, into his council of ministers. The expansion came in less than four months of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sweeping to victory in the Assembly elections by winning 92 seats of the 117 seats.
The police have so far managed to nab four of the accused, including one woman, who have been identified as Gurjant Singh (31), Navjot Singh (30), Satpal Singh (28) and Gurpreet Kaur (30).
The ambidextrous sharpshooter, identified as Ankit alias Chhota, a resident of Sonipat in Haryana, was most desperate to commit the crime."He fired simultaneously from two pistols in his two hands," H.G.S. Dhaliwal, Special Commissioner (Special Cell), said during a media briefing.
With this the two-and-half year old, three-party Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress government experiment has collapsed, barely hours after Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari ordered a floor test late on Tuesday night.
