Man Dismembered Girlfriend and Scattered Body in a Dozen Locations—Police

A food blogger in Dehli, India has been accused of murdering and chopping up his girlfriend, before hiding parts of her dismembered body around the city for wild animals to eat.

Aftab Amin Poonawalla was arrested on suspicion of murder some six months after the disappearance of Shraddha Vikas Walkar, according to news reports citing police sources.

A police-focused news website, PoliceMediaNews, tweeted a picture of the victim on Monday and said police alleged that Poonawalla was responsible for her violent death. She was strangled and dismembered in Delhi nearly six months ago.

The website claimed the couple had discussed marriage and that Walkar moved from her home in Mumbai to live with Poonawalla, but they argued about their wedding and Poonawalla allegedly killed and then butchered his partner.

A translation of the posts uploaded by PoliceMediaNews on Twitter discussing the alleged crime read: "Delhi: Ruthless murder of a girl living in a live-in relation[ship]. Lover Aftab Amin killed Mumbai's Shraddha, strangled her to death, then cut the body into 35 pieces, kept the pieces of the corpse in a big fridge."

"Aftab Amin Poonawalla was arrested by the police, [he] used to hide every piece of the dead body in the night, till now 10 to 15 body pieces have been recovered by the police," the translated posts continued. "Aftab brought [her] to Delhi from Mumbai on the pretext of marriage [then] murdered Shraddha for pressurizing marriage. [He] killed Shraddha after a quarrel on May 18, 5 months after the murder, police filed a case...."

Newsweek has reached out to Delhi Police for confirmation and further details.

An article about the crime by the Indian news website the Free Press Journal added further details to the story, citing unnamed Dehli police sources. The report claimed Walkar, 28, had met her food blogger boyfriend when the pair both worked together at a call center in the capital city of Mumbai.

The pair began dating, but their families were opposed to the relationship, so the couple moved to Delhi together where they rented an apartment in the Chhatarpur area. But officials said they argued when Walkar said she wanted to marry soon and an enraged Poonawalla allegedly murdered her.

According to the report, Walkar's father reportedly became concerned when his daughter suddenly stopped contacting home and her family saw her social media pages were silent too. He tried to visit her in Delhi but found the apartment locked. He subsequently went to the police in Mumbai, who alerted their colleagues in Delhi to launch an investigation into her disappearance.

Poonawalla allegedly chopped up Walkar into 35 pieces, which he initially stored in a fridge, before gradually disposing of the body parts in and around Dehli over a period of 18 days in the hope wild animals would eat them, police told the Free Press Journal.

Poonawalla's blog was called 'Hungry Chokro Escapades' on Instagram, according to India Today. The website has not been updated since March 2019, and the bio says it is run by two brothers, although their names are not given.

Newsweek has reached out to the blog page for further information.

The reports of Walkar's murder and the arrest of her partner follow a string of similar stories involving domestic violence in India this year.

Back in June, a father who was out delivering his daughter's wedding invitations stumbled across her dead body in the street. She had been murdered by her fiancé who wanted to call off the wedding.

In March, a man confessed to killing his live-in partner and then admitted he had also killed her previous husband several years earlier.

That same month, another man confessed to shooting and killing his 42-year-old wife as well as her two brothers after a family argument.