Shraddha murder case: Accused was inspired by Dexter, an American crime drama

Aftab Amin Poonawala, who is accused of killing his live-in partner and chopping her body into 35 pieces in Delhi, was inspired by a highly popular 2006 American crime series Dexter, which is available on Amazon Prime.

The 28-year-old accused reportedly told the police that he got inspired to cut the body of his girlfriend Shraddha Walkar into pieces and store them in the refrigerator from the show. Dexter follows the life of Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C Hall), a Miami Metro police department blood pattern analyst, who investigates murders in the homicide division but by night hunts down the murderers who have escaped the justice system. The series aired from October 1, 2006, to September 22, 2013 on Showtime.

Aftab is not the first person to kill like Dexter. In 1979, a Canadian, convicted of first-degree murder had brutally murdered a 38-year-old man and chopped him into pieces before burying him in garbage bags. He had admitted that he was inspired by Dexter and was known as the Dexter killer at that time. There have been other cases as well of murderers having been inspired by Dexter to kill.

Poonawala and Walkar had met through dating app Bumble after which they had started working at a call centre in Mumbai. The couple later moved to Delhi and took up a rented accommodation in Chhatarpur.

Also read: Shraddha murder: Aftab read about human anatomy, googled how to clean blood

On May 18, an argument broke out between them and Poonawala tried to shut her mouth with his hand, the police said. He later allegedly strangled her and the next day, Poonawala bought a saw and a 300-litre refrigerator, after being inspired by Dexter.

Aftab was caught after Shraddha’s father filed a complaint that his daughter was missing. The Delhi police received the complaint and registered an FIR on November 10.

The young couple were in a live-in relationship for three years and had shifted to Delhi. Soon after the two shifted to Delhi, Shraddha started pressurising the man to marry her, said additional deputy commissioner of police (DCP), South Delhi Ankit Chauhan told ANI.

Also read: Delhi man kills live-in partner, chops body into 35 pieces, dumps them over 18 days

According to Chauhan, the two quarrelled frequently and it used to get out of control. In this particular instance that occurred on May 18, the man lost his temper and strangled her, he added. Aftab then allegedly chopped her body into 35 pieces, and kept the pieces in the refrigerator for almost three weeks at his home.

He used to take out the chopped pieces, pack them in polythene bags and take them to the forest in a backpack. He would go to the jungle at around 2 am and return a couple of hours later and repeated this for around 20 days.

Citing sources, news agency ANI said that Aftab used to sleep every day in the same room where he had chopped the body after killing Shraddha. He used to see the face after keeping it in the fridge. However, he cleaned the fridge after disposing the body parts.

During their preliminary investigations, the police have also found some bones from Aftab’s house, which will be sent for further examinations. The police have also begun combing the Mehrauli forest to recover the body parts dumped there and have found 13 parts so far.