Shraddha murder, Sulli deals top chart

New Delhi: Delhi Police had a busy year investigating some of the most challenging and sensational cases which caught the nation's attention be it the grisly murder of 27-year-old Shradha Walkar allegedly by her live-in partner or the Sulli deals incident that created a massive outrage from all quarters. The gory details about Walkar's murder emerged after Delhi Police arrested her 28-year-old live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala on November 12. After allegedly strangling Walkar on May 18, Poonawala sawed her body into 35 pieces and kept them in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence before dumping them across the city over several days.

The incident started unfolding when the victim's father in Mumbai filed a complaint in September when one of her friends informed him that Walkar's phone had been unreachable for two months and Poonawala claimed that they had parted ways some time ago. But it was Delhi Police which in November got the lead and started frantically searching for Walkar's body parts.

Following Poonawala's confession, police scanned through various forest areas and even a pond in Madangir was emptied to look for Walkar's missing body parts. Police have recovered more than 13 body parts from forest areas of Mehrauli and Gurugram. The investigators got a headway when the DNA samples extracted from the bones recovered from the blood traced found at the house where Walkar was murdered matched with samples of her father. Polygraph test and narco analysis were also conducted on Poonawala. Even though reports of these tests are not admissible in court but his confessions made during the tests will help in further investigation.

However, police are yet to recover Walkar's mobile phone which the accused allegedly threw somewhere. The case, which had the investigators on tenterhooks, also gave fodder to gossip mills that were churning out various salacious stories, with police denying them outrightly. It will be a challenging year ahead for the investigators as police will have to depend on circumstantial and forensic evidence to prove Poonawala guilty. Days after the Walkar's case unfolded, emerged another sensational murder of 45-year-old Anjan Das who was killed on May 30 by his wife Poonam (48) and stepson Deepak (25).

Both the mother-son duo were arrested from east Delhi's Pandav Nagar in connection with the incident. Similar to the Walkar case, his body was also chopped into pieces and stuffed inside a bag which was later dumped at the Ramlila Ground in Kalyanpuri in June. Over the next few days, his legs, thighs, skull and a forearm were recovered. Das already had a wife and eight sons in Bihar, but he hid this fact from Poonam. But the case was cracked only in November. The mother-son duo had killed Das over suspicion that he was eyeing his stepdaughter and stepson's wife. They had disposed of the body parts at different places in east Delhi over a period of three to four days and buried the skull. Another horrific incident took place in December wherein two masked men on a bike flung acid on a 17-year-old girl who was attacked minutes after she left her west Delhi home for school.

The attack took place at Mohan Garden near Uttam Nagar and the girl suffered eight per cent facial burns. Later, the same evening, three men including the victim's neighbour were arrested in connection with the incident. The main accused had procured the acid through Flipkart following which police sent a notice to the e-commerce platform in this regard. The girl had been a friend of the main accused for a long time but they had a breakup two-three months ago and she stopped talking to him. To take revenge, he planned the attack. In May, another gut-wrenching incident took place in which 27 people were charred or asphyxiated after a massive blaze engulfed a commercial building in outer Delhi's Mundka area. The fire started from the first floor that housed a CCTV camera office and router manufacturing and assembling company. DNA sampling methodology was used to identify the bodies which were completely charred. Meanwhile, arrest of fact-checking website Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair in June caught international attention with journalists and activists criticising his arrest. According to police, Zubair was arrested for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets that had a questionable image with a purpose to deliberately insult the god of a particular religion. In June, a case against Zubair was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar also kept the investigators busy as they tried to unfold the conspiracy behind the 200 crore extortion case which also involved names of Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez who was quizzed by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Unit. Another Bollywood actor Nora Fatehi also came under the scanner of the investigators for her "professional" association with Chandrashekhar.

In another major development, senior IPS officer and former director general of Delhi Prisons Sandeep Goel was suspended by the Union Home Ministry for alleged dereliction of duty. This came just a month after he was removed as the head of Delhi Prisons and was attached to the Delhi Police headquarters. Trouble mounted for Goel following a letter written by Chandrashekhar to lieutenant governor VK Saxena in which he made sensational claims that he had paid Rs 12.5 crore to the officer as "protection money" for his safety in Mandoli Jail, where he is lodged in connection with a Rs 200-crore money laundering case. In the same latter dated October 7, Chandrasekhar also claimed that he had paid more than Rs 50 crore to the city's ruling AAP for an "important" post in the party and another Rs 10 crore to jailed minister Satyender Jain as "protection money". Earlier in the year, two apps - Bulli Bai and Sulli deals created massive uproar after pictures of hundreds of Muslim women, including many prominent personalities who were listed for 'auction' on the mobile application with photographs sourced without their permission and doctored. Like the Delhi Police, the Mumbai Police had also registered a case against unidentified persons following complaints about the doctored photographs being put up for 'sale' on the Bulli Bai app. During investigation, the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police cracked the case with the arrest of 20-year-old Niraj Bishnoi, who was the creator and main conspirator behind the Bulli Bai app, which targeted Muslim women by putting up doctored photographs of them without their consent, was arrested from Jorhat in Assam. Meanwhile, Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena granted sanction to prosecute the main accused in the Sulli Deals case -- Aumkareshwar Thakur under section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which pertains to prosecution for offences against the state and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence.

Thakur had allegedly created the Sulli Deals App and Sulli Deals Twitter handle that auctioned Muslim women on social media platforms, with the aim of insulting them and the Muslim community. The year also gave Delhi Police its new chief -- Sanjay Arora who succeeded 1984-batch IPS officer Rakesh Asthana. Arora's appointment as Delhi Police chief came after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) approved his inter-cadre deputation from the Tamil Nadu cadre to the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. Besides investigating crucial cases, on a positive note, Delhi Police also stepped up its social media game to connect with public. From making memes using clips from popular Bollywood movies to Instagram reels to conducting interactive sessions online, the Delhi Police is tapping into the latest social media trends to connect with the public, spread awareness about cyber and financial crimes, and showcase its citizen-centric initiatives.