Mehrauli killing: People backed by VHP, other groups take out candle marches; demand death penalty to accused

People in small groups, backed by the Vishva Hindu Parshad (VHP) and other outfits, took out candle marches in South Delhi on Thursday evening and demanded capital punishment to Aaftab Amin Poonawala arrested by Delhi Police recently for allegedly killing a 27-year-old woman living with him.

People participating in the candle marches, taken out from eight different locations in South Delhi's Mehrauli area, also demanded that the Delhi government bring stringent laws against ''illegal religious conversion and love jihad''.

''The marches were taken out peacefully by the people belonging to Hindu society who are angry over the gruesome murder of Shradha Walkar in Mehrauli,'' VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal told PTI.

The candle marches were supported by the VHP and other outfits, he added.

Those who participated in the 'Hindu Jagriti' candle march paid tribute to the victim and demanded speedy trial of her murder case and award of death penalty to the accused ''within three months'', VHP's Delhi unit secretary Surendra Gupta said in a statement.

''They also demanded that stringent laws be brought in to put a curb on illegal religious conversion and love jihad in the national capital,'' he added.

Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight.

Police said the couple used to have frequent arguments over financial issues and it is suspected that there was also a fight between them that resulted in Poonawala killing Walkar on the evening of May 18.

Earlier in the day, a city court allowed the Delhi Police to question Poonawala for five more days in its custody.

The court also allowed narco analysis test of the accused.

The investigators probing the murder case are likely to take help from other police districts in Delhi and will take accused Poonawala to locations like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to establish the sequence of events leading to the brutal murder of Walkar, sources said.

After leaving Mumbai, Walkar and Poonawala had allegedly travelled to these locations.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)