Shraddha Walkar audio tapes: ‘(Aaftab) will hunt me down, try to kill me’

According to police, Aaftab killed Shraddha after a fight broke out between them on May 18 last year over her allegedly meeting a man she got to know on a dating app. Police investigation relied on audio recordings of an online counselling app in which Aaftab and Shraddha had taken two sessions with psychologists in August, 2021.

In one such session, Shraddha tells the psychologist that whenever they have arguments, “Aaftab does not engage in vocal arguments but begins to beat her”.

“Not only physical violence but it leads Aaftab to almost killing me. This is not the first time he tried to kill me… I beg, when you are hitting me to at least not hit, to talk it out. It has been two years since I have been telling you to talk it out,” Walkar purportedly says.

She further says: “Whenever I start ranting about my anger, if he is somewhere around… he will find me, he will hunt me down, he will try to kill me, that there is the problem… I don’t know how many times he tried to kill me; this is not the first time he tried to kill me… The way he grabbed my neck… I was unable to breathe for 30 seconds or a little bit more than that. Thankfully I was able to defend myself by pulling his hair.”

The SPP also relied on Shraddha’s 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”.

The prosecution had relied on witness statements to establish important events leading up to the last time she was seen by any of the witnesses. The prosecution relied on the statement of a neighbour, who told police that 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 SPP told the court that only traces were created by the accused to show “digital visibility” of the deceased. “Social media activity with the limited purpose of masking. Her own phone travelled with the accused to Mumbai and (was) then destroyed,” the SPP told the court.

The SPP told the court that “there clearly are incriminating circumstances revealed through reliable and clinching evidence. These circumstances form a chain of events. The chain of events leads to an irresistible conclusion about the guilt of the accused for offence under sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender). It is immaterial whether the case is based on direct or circumstantial evidence. Charges can be framed, if there are materials showing possibility about the commission of the crime as against certainty”.