Mumbai (PTI): Vikas Walkar, father of Shraddha Walkar who was murdered allegedly by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala in Delhi, on Friday demanded that the accused be hanged to death for killing his daughter.

Poonawala allegedly strangled Shraddha and cut her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in Mehrauli in south Delhi in May this year, before dumping them across the city over several days.

"Aaftab Poonawala should be given capital punishment of hanging for killing my daughter...There should be stern action against Poonawala and whosoever was involved in the case," Walkar told reporters here after meeting Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

"An inquiry should also be conducted against the police officials of Vasai and Nalasopara and Tulinj police (in Palghar district) for delayed the investigation on Shraddha's complaint. Had they acted immediately, my daughter would have been alive now," he said.

Shraddha Walkar had submitted a written complaint to Tulinj police in November 2020, in which she alleged: "Poonawala has been abusing me and beating me up. Today, he 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 anyway. It's been six months he has been hitting me. But I did not have the guts to go to police because he would threaten to kill me."

Vikas Walkar said Delhi Governor and DCP Delhi South and Maharashtra deputy CM Fadnavis have assured justice to his family.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.

Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.

He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.

Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.

He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.

Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.

He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.