On Wednesday, 4 January, the Delhi police stated that bone and hair samples, purported to be of Shraddha Walkar, have matched with her father and brother.
Delhi Police's Special CP (Law and Order) Sagar Preet Hooda said, "The bones and hair, where DNA can't be extracted were sent to Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, for DNA Mitrocondrial profiling."
He said that on Wednesday, the Delhi police received the result of the examination as per which the samples have matched with Walkar's father and brother. "This establishes the identity of the bone and hair to be that of Walkar's," said Special CP Hooda.
Walkar was killed, her body chopped into at least 35 pieces which were strewn across Delhi's Mehrauli area in May 2022 -- allegedly by her partner Aaftab Poonawala. The matter only came to the fore in November 2022 and Poonawala was arrested.
On Wednesday, Special CP Hooda said that the "bones will now be sent for post-mortem exam which will be conducted by a medical board at the All India Institute of Medical Science."
What is the case? In November Poonawala -- who is accused of the crime -- was arrested by Delhi police in connection to the case. The couple had moved to Delhi from Mumbai in May 2022. Days later, he allegedly killed her, chopped her body into pieces, stored them in a fridge, and then threw them across different parts of Mehrauli for the next two months.
It was in September that Walkar's father Vikas complained to the Mumbai police that his daughter had been missing, after her friends told him that she had not responded to their messages, and was not active on social media for months.
Once the arrest was made, Walkar's friends alleged that Poonawala was abusive towards her for years. A Delhi Police officer had told The Quint at the time that the two "fought over the accused's alleged infidelity, and over financial woes."
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