Shraddha Walkar Case: The Warning Letter Nobody Acted On, and a Trial Still Waiting for a Verdict

On 23 November 2020, a 25-year-old woman from Vasai, near Mumbai, walked into Tulinj police station and handed over a letter. Her partner had been hitting her for six months, she wrote. He had tried to kill her. He had threatened to cut her into pieces. His parents, she added, knew about it.

Her name was Shraddha Walkar. A police officer visited the couple. Soon after, Shraddha wrote that the dispute had been resolved, and the complaint was closed.

Eighteen months later, she was dead. Police allege the man she had named in that letter killed her in a flat in Delhi, three days after they moved in.

Aaftab Poonawala is accused, not convicted. He has pleaded not guilty and the trial is still going on. What follows about how Shraddha died is what the police and prosecution allege, and it is being tested in court.

Shraddha and Aaftab both grew up in Vasai, in Maharashtra’s Palghar district. They met on the dating app Bumble in 2019 and moved in together. Her family opposed the relationship. In court, her father later said that when they objected, she told them she was capable of taking her own decisions.

Her parents had separated, and her mother died in 2020. Her father says that after her mother’s death, Shraddha came to see him and said Aaftab beat her. She went back to him when he apologised. Two men in Vasai later told Delhi Police they had helped her after an assault in 2020.

In counselling sessions she recorded online, later played in court, Shraddha said she feared he would hunt her down and kill her.

In May 2022 the couple moved to Delhi. Police say they rented a flat in Chhatarpur Pahadi, in South Delhi’s Mehrauli area, on 15 May.

According to the police, three days later, on 18 May, the two quarrelled, and Aaftab strangled her. The chargesheet alleges that he then bought tools, kept her remains in a fridge in the flat, and over about 18 days left them in the forests of Mehrauli and Chhatarpur. Police say money was moved from her account on 20 May.

Police also allege that during those weeks he met another woman through the same dating app, that she visited the flat, and that he gave her Shraddha’s ring. The woman has not been named and is not accused of anything.

For months, nobody raised the alarm. Shraddha was not close to her family, and her main link to home was her friend Laxman Nadar. In September 2022, worried that he had heard nothing from her, Nadar told her brother Shreejay, who told their father.

Vikas Walkar filed a missing-person complaint at Manikpur police station in Vasai in October. Police there traced her last known address to the flat in Delhi. On 8 November, her father found it locked and went to Mehrauli police. A murder case was registered, and on 12 November 2022 Aaftab was arrested.

Over the next days, police took him to the forests. They said they recovered 13 body parts, mostly bones. DNA tests later matched them to Shraddha’s father. Aaftab was also put through polygraph and narco-analysis tests, whose results cannot be used as evidence in an Indian court.

Delhi Police filed their chargesheet on 24 January 2023: 6,629 pages, including annexures, with more than 150 witness statements. Police said the fight that night began because Shraddha had gone to meet a friend, which Aaftab did not like.

On 9 May 2023, Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar framed charges of murder and destroying evidence. Aaftab pleaded not guilty. The prosecution argued that he had killed her in the same way he threatened in 2020.

The trial has been slow. By mid-2026, The Week counted more than 215 hearings, with adjournments for things like a dental visit, psychiatric sessions and a university exam. In July 2026, the Delhi High Court declined her brother’s request to set a deadline, noting the trial was running day to day. Police told the court that 157 of 222 witnesses had been examined; her brother’s petition put it at 171 of 221.

A supplementary chargesheet in May 2024 added digital evidence, including Google location history that police say traces where he went. In October 2026, the court allowed officers from WhatsApp, Google and Bumble to testify by video link from 1 December. Reports describe the trial as close to its end.

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The case horrified India. It set off arguments about live-in relationships, dating apps, and how police treat women who report violence at home. Politicians took sides: some used it to attack interfaith relationships, others to demand better protection for women.

The coverage became a problem of its own. In April 2023, a trial court stopped Aaj Tak from airing material from the chargesheet, and the Delhi High Court then barred all channels from broadcasting it. In Vasai, Shraddha’s father led a silent march in her memory in May 2023.

Vikas Walkar spent his last years in courtrooms. He asked for the death penalty for his daughter’s killer, and for action against the police who had closed her 2020 complaint. He said she would be alive if they had acted.

He also asked for her remains, so the family could perform her last rites. They are still held as evidence. On 9 February 2025, he died at home in Vasai of a suspected cardiac arrest. Her brother Shreejay has taken up the fight, and is still asking for her remains to be released.

If you or someone you know is facing violence at home, call the Women Helpline on 181 or the emergency number 112. Both are free and work across India.

As of October 2026, the trial is in its final stretch at Saket court before Additional Sessions Judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi, with overseas technology company officers due to testify from 1 December. Aaftab Poonawala remains in Tihar jail and is presumed innocent until the court decides.

The Shraddha Walkar case is remembered for its horror. It should be remembered for its warning. Two years before she died, a young woman put her fear in writing and handed it to the police. The system took her withdrawal at face value and moved on.

Whatever the court decides, that part of the story is already on the record. The next woman who walks into a police station with a letter like hers deserves more than a visit and a closed file.