A Delhi court on Thursday allowed a narco analysis test on Aaftab Poonawala, who is accused of killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, reported PTI. The court also extended his police custody by five days.
The 28-year-old was arrested on November 12 after he confessed to killing Walkar and chopping her body into pieces. He then threw them at different places in Delhi over several days.
The police sought narco test in the case as investigators said that Poonawala’s replies were “largely evasive and non-cooperating,” reported The Indian Express.
In a narco analysis test, a person is injected with a drug called sodium pentothal, which lowers their self-consciousness, thereby allowing them to speak without restrictions. The test is done under the supervision of a psychologist, an investigating officer, or a forensic expert.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police will take Poonawala to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other places for evidence. The couple had gone on a vacation to for some weeks to Himachal Pradesh before they moved to Delhi in May.
On May 18, Poonawala strangulated Walkar after the couple got into a heated argument. After killing her, Poonawala kept the body in the house for two days, and then began to cut it with a saw. The accused man also bought a fridge in order to store the body parts.
The woman’s father, Vikas Walkar, who lives in the Palghar district near Mumbai, had filed a police complaint about his missing daughter in October, The Hindu reported. The complaint was filed in Mumbai, but was transferred to the Mehrauli Police Station in Delhi on November 8.
The missing complaint was converted into a first information report under abduction charges after authorities tracked down Shraddha’s phone to a house in Delhi’s Chattarpur, where she had been living in with Poonawalla.
According to the police, Poonawalla first claimed that Shraddha had left him but later admitted to having killed her. The police took him to the Mehrauli forest and made him recreate the sequence of events and have recovered more than 10 suspected body parts, mostly in the form of bones.
The recovered body parts have been sent for forensic analysis that would take at least two weeks, reported The Indian Express.
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