Shraddha murder: Father denies beating wife, not aware of daughter's drug use

The father of Shraddha Walkar Friday denied before a Delhi court that he had beaten his late wife in front of his two children and that he had a conversation with his daughter about the reason for beating his wife.

He also denied having any knowledge about his daughter consuming lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD, a synthetic chemical based-drug categorised as a hallucinogen.

The victim's father, Vikas Madan Walkar, was being cross-examined as a prosecution witness by accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala's counsel before additional sessions judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar.

Poonawala is accused of strangling his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar on May 18 last year and hacking her body into pieces.

Defence counsel Akshay Bhandari was cross-examining Vikas Walkar on the basis on a video recording of his daughter and Poonawala talking to a psychologist.

The entire video recording has not yet been played in the court.

"Did you beat your wife in front of children when they were young? Are you aware that your daughter used to consume LSD? Is it within your knowledge that Shraddha had told the counsellor that you used to beat your wife, and therefore, she was disturbed?" the defence counsel asked.

Vikas Walkar replied in the negative to all the questions.

To the question "Did Shraddha ever talk to you as to why you used to beat your wife?" Walkar said, "I never spoke to my daughter about this."

Special public prosecutor Madhukar Pandey objected to the question, saying, "It was suggestive in nature as it contained an innuendo."

A question posed by Bhandari about Shraddha failing in Class 7 due to "bad atmosphere at home" was disallowed by the court on the ground that the father could not be confronted with a recording of which he was not a part.

Bhandari then reframed the question as, "Is it within your knowledge that your daughter failed in Class 7 as there was a bad atmosphere at home as you used to beat your wife?"

To this, Vikas Walkar said, "My daughter had not failed in the class." He said Sharddha had obtained less marks in one of the subjects.

The defence counsel also asked the father whether he was aware that his daughter had a "hallucination problem," to which he replied in the negative.

The matter has been posted for Monday for the remaining cross-examination.

Meanwhile, the cross-examination of the victim's brother, Shreejay Vikas Walkar, was completed on Friday.

The defence counsel had on Thursday played an audio recording of a conversation involving the accused, the victim, and a psychologist booked on Practo App in the court to controvert the prosecution's case on some aspects.

The counsel for the accused wanted to drive home several points, one of which argues that it was the victim who used to get "irritated" with Poonawala.

On certain issues relating to the audio recordings, the court agreed that they pertained to records.

The court's validation came after Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad raised objections to the questions.

After allegedly strangling Sharddha Walkar, Poonawala sawed her body into pieces and kept them in a fridge for almost three weeks at his rented house in south Delhi's Mehrauli. He later threw the pieces at different places in the national capital to avoid getting caught.