Shraddha, Aaftab and the many red flags

“At this, (Shraddha’s) friend along with his friends went to visit her … she had injury marks on her nose, throat and head. Shraddha told him that Aaftab banged her head against the wall. They decided that Shraddha would not stay with Aaftab. They asked her to pack her bag but Aaftab again had a fight with her…Shraddha told her friend Aaftab would kill her if she went with him. Shraddha took her baggage and stayed at a hotel in Vasai for two days but she again decided to go with Aaftab,” it states.

Shraddha also sent a letter to the local police in Maharashtra on November 23, 2020, stating that Aaftab “tried to kill me by suffocating me and he scares and blackmails me that he will kill me, cut me up in pieces and throw me away”. She wrote that this went on for six months, “but I don’t have the guts to go to the police because he would threaten to kill me”.

In March last year, Shraddha told her friend that she and Aaftab were going on a trip to North India to “improve their relationship”. “In the second week of May 2022, her friend received a call from Shraddha, who said she was having regular quarrels with Aaftab… She said that she would break up with Aaftab but after some time, he came to know from Shraddha that she was living with Aaftab in Delhi,” the chargesheet states.

Based on the friend’s statement, police said it was evident that Aaftab was frequently violent with Shraddha and “their relationship was not healthy”.

Shraddha’s colleague and team leader at her company told police that on November 23, 2020, she informed him on mobile that Aaftab had beaten her so she would not be able to come to office. “Shraddha also sent her photo on his WhatsApp and there were injury marks on her face, throat and cheek,” the colleague was quoted as saying.

Thereafter, he sent one of his colleagues to Shraddha’s place and she informed him that she had filed a police complaint. She left the job in March 2021.

A man who met Shraddha and Aaftab during their tour to Kasol also spoke to the police. The chargesheet states: “While staying at his place, they used to fight verbally with each other aggressively and then used to go back to behaving normally with each other. He did not feel comfortable seeing these fights and finally told them to vacate the flat on April 13… He found that Aaftab was quite fluctuating, from being loud and angry to switching to being soft and convincing her to not leave him. She told him that she was leaving, but in the end they got back to normal behaviour.”

The couple’s neighbours also told the police about quarrels and arguments between the two.

One neighbour said that when he was smoking in his lane, he saw Aaftab “dragging Shraddha upstairs”. “The girl was trying to come downstairs but the boy was holding her hand. When Aaftab saw him in the lane, he dragged Shraddha inside his flat,” he told police. The chargesheet states that it was clear Aaftab “tortured” and “tormented” Shraddha and she decided to break up with him several times but she could not because she had “no support system” and “she was largely banking on the accused or rather she was at no-return point”.

The chargesheet further stated that Shraddha used to live “under constant fear” of being killed by Aaftab or being “beaten badly on petty issues”. “Aaftab used to beat her mercilessly and at times used to strangulate her almost to death,” it states.