Sony LIV has deleted the Shraddha Walkar episode of the true crime anthology series ‘Crime Patrol’ from the app. The link now shows a “Content Not Found” message. Reportedly, Sony was facing criticism on social media for showing the perpetrator Aftab as a Hindu named Mihir and Shraddha as a Christian named Anna in the episode.
Aired last week, the episode of ‘Crime Patrol’ portrayed the victim Shraddha Walkar as a Christian girl named ‘Anna Fernandes’, while her killer boyfriend Aftab Amin Poonawalla, a Muslim man, was depicted as ‘Mihir’ in the crime anthology series. The duo is also seen marrying at a temple in the episode.
The episode showed the duo based out of Pune, even though Aftab and Shraddha were based out of Delhi, where the former brutally killed her and later severed her body parts to be discarded at different places across the NCR region. In addition to this, the episode showed Mihir’s mother as a devout Hindu, an implicit hint that he belonged to a Hindu family, even though Aftab was a practising Muslim.
The program was numbered 212 and was titled the ‘Ahmedabad-Pune’ murder case under Crime Patrol 2.0. The episode resulted in an uproar on social media; netizens had trended #BoycottSonyTV on Twitter.
On December 30, the popular Twitter account GemsOfBollywood tweeted, “Murderer Aftab becomes Mihir. Victim Shraddha becomes Anna. LJ criminal becomes Yoga Teacher. And topiwala becomes primary informer who helps police. Crime Patrol on Sony LIV.”
Shraddha Walkar murder case
On November 14, the Delhi Police solved the six-month-old murder case of Shraddha Walkar and arrested Aftab Poonawala for murdering her, and then chopping her into 35 pieces to dispose off the body. Aftab executed the murder on May 18 and stored her body parts in a refrigerator. He then disposed of the body pieces in Delhi’s Mehrauli forest over the next several days.
The accused was arrested based on the complaint filed by Shraddha’s father on November 10. He stated in the complaint that the accused and the deceased had rented an apartment in Delhi and were staying in an abusive live-in relationship. He said that he had always opposed their relationship as Aftab used to physically assault Shraddha.
The girl, a resident of Palghar was adamant about continuing her relationship with accused Aftab and shifted to Delhi with him. Three days afater they shifted to Delhi, they engaged in a quarrel and Aftab happened toa kill Shraddha. He confessed his crime on November 14 and stated that they used to fight a lot. He said that he murdered Shraddha on May 18 as she was insisting on getting married. They also fought over who would manage the domestic household expenses.
After the Delhi Police detained Poonawala on November 12, the shocking revelations surrounding Shraddha Walkar’s murder stunned the whole country. The 28-year-old admitted during questioning that he killed Shraddha Walkar, dissected her body, and dumped the pieces in the forest to eliminate all evidence.
The corpse of the murdered woman was sawed into 35 pieces on May 18 and kept in a 300-litre refrigerator at Poonawala’s home in Mehrauli, south Delhi, for over three weeks before being dumped throughout the city over a number of days.
