Shraddha Walker's 2020 viral pic shows cuts on face, swollen eyes and bruised cheeks

New Delhi, Nov 18: A photo of Shraddha Walker who was strangled and chopped into multiple pieces allegedly by her live-in partner Aftab Amin Poonawala has now gone viral on various social media platforms. The viral photo, if true, stands testimony to the fact that Walker was in an abusive and toxic relationship with Aftab.

The image showed Shraddha's bruised cheeks, cuts on face and swollen eyes. Moreover to support the claim, a hospital report accessed by a TV channel said that she was admitted to hospital for 4 days in 2020. She was hospitalised at Ozone Multispeciality Hospital in Vasai, with severe pain in her back and spine for around a week, on December 3, 2020. It is suspected that she had been assaulted by Aftab, which led to the back pain following which she had to be hospitalised.

Dr SP Shinde, who treated Shraddha in 2020 in Ozone Multispeciality Hospital, Nalasopara told ANI,''Shraddha was admitted for severe pain in shoulders & back, she didn't tell reason. Extreme injury wasn't found on her. Aftab was present during admission. Don't recall seeing her family.''

When Shraddha reportedly gave details about her abusive relationship to her family, her father had asked her to stay back but when Aftab came to pick her up, she left with him.

Recalling the days when her friends have also reportedly said that the accused would often beat her up and she wanted to end the relationship but couldn't. Shraddha's friends in Maharashtra's Palghar had also earlier reported that the couple were happy in the beginning, however, things deteriorated between them and there were times when she wanted to break the relationship.

Aftab assaulted her in 2021 as well when Shraddha's friends had to intervene and come to her rescue. "I saw bruises on her neck, upper chest and her nose was bruised too. Even back then, we had warned him that we would file a police complaint," Indian Express quoted her friend as stating.

The shocking details emerging now and then from the Delhi Police investigation into the gruesome murder case has sent shockwaves across the nation and it has once again put the spotlight on women's safety, especially for those in abusive relationships.

The beginning of the end

Shraddha Walker had met Aftab Amin Poonawala on dating app Bumble in 2019 in Maharashtra. The couple had left Mumbai and spent a lot of time in the hills in March and April.

They arrived in Delhi on May 8 and stayed at different places until they moved into the Chhattarpur apartment on May 15. The two had been fighting with Shraddha reportedly suspecting Aftab of cheating on her. She was murdered three days later and the crime came to light only in November.

The police said that the couple would fight regularly over issues such as marriage and who would bear the household expenses. In the fight on May 18 he strangled her to death and then set out to buy a knife and fridge.

Following a missing person's complaint filed by Shraddha's father, the police arrested Aftab last Saturday, six months after the crime took place. In custody while confessing to his crime, he told the police that after killing her, he chopped her up into 35 parts and disposed her body parts in different parts of the city.