Lower anger tolerance, piled-up grudg♑es, and lack ཧof communication are some of the reasons that drive violent crimes like Shraddha Walkar's murder.
Shraddha was allegedly🐈 murdered in May by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala, who is also accused of chopping her corpse into 35 pieces and disposing off those parts in forests of Delhi over several days. Aaftab was arrested earlier this month, over six month afte🅠r he allegedly killed Shraddha.
As people struggle to come to terms with the brutality of the crime, experts highlight that no single reason can be attributed to such actsღ. They say there are several reasons that drive people to such violence.
Aaftab, 28, was a trained chef. He and Shraddha, 26, met on a dating platform. They began a relationship in Mumbai and moved to D🐭elhi when Shraddha's family opposed the relationship. In May, within days of moving into their South Delhi Mehrauli home, they entered an argument over the question of marriage. Within days of the argument, Aaftab allegedly killer Shraddha.
Forensic psychologist Deepti Puranik told PTI thatဣ for somebody to be caught in a fit of rage so intense to kill their partner, one has to look at the increasingly lowering levels of toleranc🧔e among people.
"We find it often these days that people get stressed out eaꦆsily, they are not able to tolerate frustration. And there is certainly a lack of communication. Instead of communicating and resolving the issue, they are resorting to fighting. People usually 👍avoid communicating, nobody wants to sit down and listen," saud Puranik.
The complaint by the Shraddha's father alleged that Aaftab used to beat her on several occasions and that she had informed her family abo🥀ut it earlier.
Piling issues, old grudges, and an anti-social lifestyle can lead to a sudden burst of anger in some p💧eople, said Smita Pandey, Associate Dean, School of Behavioural Science, National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU).
Pandey said, "Lately, people are not able to forgive small issues that happen in daily life. They keep piling up and theꦿ grudges are kept alive. People are also leading an anti-social lifestyle. All of it can result in a fit of rage that they ဣcannot control their anger.";
She further said that there is no recourse for anger manage🦄ment and there is a visible lack of communication in such cases.
Aaftab told the police during the investigation that he killed Shraddha after a quarrel over marriage and the idea of chopping her body into pieces was inspired by American crime TV series Dexter.
"Ample studies in people who watch violent tv shows have reflected that there is an increase in aggression. If you look at OTT platforms, we have kind of🏅 normalised aggression and violence. Adolescent young people become immune to these things after watching it on TV so much,"ꦺ; said Puranik.
Clinical p𝔉yschologist Manoj Kumar Sharma noted that violent films can give a "symbolic expression" to the anger of people with psychopathological traits and anti-social nature.
"Such films impa🅺ct different people in different ways. Some people have a higher level of aggression and impulsivity. They find a symbolic expression of their anger in such films. They may even watch such films to plan and prepare for a crime," said Sharma of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).
Shraddha's murder by Aaftab, despite its brutality, is not an isolated incident. It's a chilling reminder of a similar case in 2010 when a software engineer in Dehradun chopped off his wife in over 70 pieces. During the investigation of the crime, it emerged that the accused was inspired by the Hollywood film Silence of the Lambs.
More recently, a 26-year-old man from Jharkhand, absconding since 2018, was arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly killing a 15-year-old girl whose dismembered body ꦫwas found in Delhi. The accused, Shalu Topno, along with his associates, had allegedly chopped the girl's body into six pieces, put it in a bag, and thrown it near a water body.
The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday said the body of an unidentified wo♔man, chopped into several pieces, was found in a well at a village in Azamgarh. Loc💫als discovered the body and informed police, they said.
Apart from crediting probable "psychopathological traits" in Aaftab to have disassociated with his live-in partner of three years and murdering her 𓆉in cold blood, Puranik blamed violent films and TV shows for having desensitised the youth towards violence.
(With PTI inputs)
