Bones and hair strands recovered from Mehrauli forest match Shraddha Walker’s DNA: Delhi Police

The bones would be useful in accurately determining the cause of death despite being in decaying condition

Vikas Walkar, father of Shraddha Walkar, addresses the media after meeting with Dy. CM Devender Fadnavis, in Mumbai on December 9, 2022. File | Photo Credit: PTI

The Delhi police on Wednesday said that the results of a fresh DNA profiling test on a set of bones and hair strands that were recovered from the forests in south Delhi’s Mehrauli and Chhattarpur during Shraddha Walkar’s investigation, have matched with the samples provided by the Walker family.

Special Commissioner of Police (Land and Order Zone II) Sagar Preet Hooda said that the set of bones and hair strands, where the DNA could not be extracted, were sent to the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFC) in Hyderabad for DNA mitrocondrial profiling.

He said that the samples matched with those of Shraddha Walker’s father and brother.

“The bones will now be sent for post-mortem examination that will be conducted by a medical board in AIIMS,” Mr. Hooda said.

Alternative method accurate

According to a source from the Forensic Science Laboratory, when there is a case where it it is difficult to conduct DNA extraction, laboratories can extract mitochondria from the cell. He said that this procedure gives accurate results and genome sequence is matched with the family.

The source said that the bones would be useful in determining the cause of death, which would be specified in the post-mortem report. He said that even though the bones were in decaying condition, they would have accurate results.

Samples such as hair, bones and teeth are usually analysed for mitochondrial DNA sampling. In these samples, the nuclear DNA was present in smaller quantities, or in certain cases, the samples were highly degraded, in the similar case, the bones were found to be in degraded condition.

Aftab Poonawalla, 28, was arrested on November 11, for allegedly strangulating and dismembering his live-in partner, Shraddha Walker’s body in several pieces, storing them in a fridge and, over a period of three months, dumping them at various spots in south Delhi’s jungles around Mehrauli and Chhattarpur.

Apart from the CFSL report, police had also received the results of Aftab’s polygraph test from FSL in Rohini.

Earlier in December, sources from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory had said that 13 bones recovered by their team from the forest area last month, all, except a part of a skull, had matched the DNA samples collected from Shraddha’s father, Vikas Walker.