Major Headway in Shraddha Murder Case as Dad's DNA Matches with Bones Found in Delhi Forest

The 12 bone pieces recovered in Delhi’s Mehrauli forest area have been matched with samples of Shraddha Walkar’s father, a report by news agency PTI quoted police sources as saying. Walkar was allegedly strangled and her body parts chopped into 35 pieces by her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala. The parts were disposed of in various parts of the national capital by the accused.

“The police has received the DNA report of the bones found. The DNA of the bones matches with the DNA samples of Walkar’s father,” a source was quoted.

The bone samples were sent for DNA analysis to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. The report of Poonawala’s polygraph test was submitted to the police by the forensic sciences lab on Wednesday.

Over 20 teams of Delhi police with more than 200 policemen along with experts from the forensic science laboratory, Delhi, are searching for evidences, scientific, technical, and physical, to be able to corroborate it with Poonawala’s confession and prove him the murderer.

The police also wrote to telecom companies to trace the locations of Walkar and Poonawala’s cellphones before the said date of the murder, May 18. Police have also contacted some social networking sites to get details of Walkar’s profiles, to the banks in which she managed accounts, and some messaging platforms have also been asked to share chats of both Poonawala and Walkar with their contacts during that period.

Recently, the Maharashtra government set up a committee to gather information on the inter-faith and inter-caste marriage couples and the maternal families of the women involved if they are estranged, with its head and state minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha saying the move is aimed at avoiding a repeat of the Shraddha Walkar case.

A Government Resolution (GR) issued on Tuesday by the state’s Women and Child Development Department said the “Intercaste/Interfaith marriage-family coordination committee (state level)” will be headed by Lodha.

The committee will monitor district-level initiatives for women involved in such marriages who may be estranged from their families, so that assistance can be provided if necessary, it said.

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