‘Shraddha said Aftab beat her many times’: Friend as Delhi murder shocks nation

Shrad­dha informed her friends includ­ing Shuk­la that she was mov­ing to Del­hi to work with Aftab.

Shrad­dha Walka­r’s friend Rajat Shuk­la describes her as a the­ater enthu­si­ast who loved to act and had “a lot of spark” in her personality.

“Shrad­dha and I met in col­lege. We both want­ed to be jour­nal­ists, so we often stud­ied togeth­er. We were the­ater lovers. We have act­ed in sev­er­al the­ater pro­duc­tions togeth­er,” says Mr. Shukla.

But all that changed when she met Aftab, he says. “She got bored. Soon after, she told me about their rela­tion­ship. When I met him, he seemed nor­mal to me. They said they want­ed to move in togeth­er,” he added.

Shrad­dha informed her friends includ­ing Shuk­la that she was mov­ing to Del­hi with Aftab. “She said they decid­ed to move to Del­hi for work. We lost con­tact with her after she moved.”

On Tues­day, Del­hi police arrest­ed 28-year-old Aftab Amin Poon­awala for alleged­ly mur­der­ing the Mum­bai woman six months ago, chop­ping up her body into 35 pieces and dump­ing it at var­i­ous loca­tions in and around the nation­al capital.

Shrad­dha had told her friends and par­ents that Aftab would often hit her when the two were fight­ing over the marriage.

“We tried to get her home safe­ly. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all we got back was news of her bru­tal mur­der,” says Mr. Shukla.

“This can’t be a love sto­ry. Love sto­ries don’t end like that. Inves­ti­ga­tors must find out who he is and what he was think­ing. I hope jus­tice for Shrad­dha,” he adds.