Shraddha's SOS to friend, Aftab's new date: Mehrauli murder case details surface

Her friend started worrying about Shraddha after she stopped contacting him for two months

Even as people were coming to terms with the news of gruesome murder of Shraddha Walkar in Delhi's Mehrauli, shocking details of the case are now coming to light.

A day after the news appeared, a friend of the 27-year-old woman revealed that he had first alerted her family in Maharashtra's Palghar of her 'missing' status in September, which kicked off an investigation.

Laxman Nadar told India Today that Shraddha, who was living with her partner Aftab Poonawalla, had asked him to rescue her from her residence. "Once she contacted me on WhatsApp and asked to rescue her from her residence. She said that if she stayed with him (Aftab) that night, he would kill her," Nadar said.

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Nadar added that he, along with some other friends, rescued Shraddha from her residence in Chhatarpur and warned Aftab that they would approach the police. "Keeping in mind Shraddha's commitment towards Aaftab, we did not reach out to police," he added.

Aftab and Shraddha, who fell in love while working in Mumbai in 2019, had moved to Delhi earlier this year after facing opposition from their families. In May, they reportedly had an argument over getting married, which escalated and he strangled her. He later chopped her body into nearly 35 pieces and kept them in a fridge for nearly 20 days before gradually dumping them across Delhi.

Nadar started worrying about Shraddha after she did not contact him for two months. "She did not respond to any of my texts. Finally, it became a point of concern for me. I started asking common friends and others about Shraddha. After not being able to locate her whereabouts, I finally informed her brother that she had gone incommunicado for over a couple of months and said we should seek help from the police," he told the publication.

Meanwhile, a report by The Indian Express said that while Shraddha's body parts were stuffed in a fridge, Poonawalla allegedly got in touch with the other woman, a psychologist, on Bumble. He had met Shraddha on the same dating app in 2019, sources told the publication.

"The other woman came to his house a couple of times in June-July. He hid Walkar’s body parts in the fridge and kitchen," the source said.

In a bid to hide the murder, Poonawalla had reportedly messaged Shraddha's friends on Instagram from her account. He also paid her credit card bills so that the companies don’t contact her at her residence in Mumbai.

Another friend of Shraddha's told The Indian Express that she wanted to break up with Poonawalla because he "mentally tortured her and physically assaulted her several times". She, however, continued their relationship as he emotionally blackmailed her.