MUMBAI: Vikas Walkar, the father of Shraddha Walkar whose brutal murder in 2022 had caused a nationwide sensation, died on Sunday at his residence in Vasai city of Maharashtra's Palghar district, police said.

Vikas Walkar was found motionless by his family members in the morning, following which he was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead, a police official said.

The preliminary investigation suggests cardiac arrest caused the death.

A postmortem report is awaited in the case, the official said without elaborating.

Shraddha Walkar was allegedly strangled to death by her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala in their flat in Delhi in May 2022. He allegedly chopped her body into pieces and stuffed the severed parts into a refrigerator before scattering those at multiple places in the national capital over several days to avoid detection.

The Delhi Police filed a 6,629-page chargesheet in the case on January 24, 2023.