On May 18, hours before she was brutally murdered by her live-in partner, Shraddha Walker reportedly sent a text message to one of her friends. A screenshot of the chat, which emerged on Wednesday, showed that she was active on social media till early evening.
"Dude, I've got news. I got super busy with something," Shraddha said in her message sent at 4.34 pm.
“What the news?,” her friend asked at 6.29 pm. However, Shraddha didn't respond and went silent.
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According to police, a quarrel broke out between Shraddha and Aftab Amin Poonawala, the accused, at 8 pm on May 18. The altercation escalated and Aftab strangled her to death. He allegedly chopped her body into over 35 pieces, dumped them in different parts of a forest area in south Delhi over several days.
Aftab was arrested on Monday. During the investigation it was revealed that Aftab had used Shraddha's social media accounts to chat with her friends to give the impression that she was still alive.
Police sources told news agency ANI on Wednesday that the couple had an argument on May 18 over shifting of household items from Mumbai.
"On May 18, there was a fight between the two regarding bringing household items from Mumbai. They used to fight over who would bear the household expenses and bring items. Aftab got very angry about this. The quarrel started around 8 pm when Aftab strangled Shraddha to death,” they said.
The May 18 quarrel was not the first time; Aftab and Shraddha were fighting for the last three years, they added.
The duo, who met on dating app Bumble, moved to Delhi from Mumbai earlier this year after their families objected to their relationship.
Mumbai Police launched a probe in September following a missing complaint filed by Shraddha's father who was informed by one of her friends that she remained unreachable for a few months.
Since the last location of Shraddha's phone was found to be in Delhi's Mehrauli area, the case was transferred to Delhi Police.