Nikki murder: Victim’s diary crucial evidence, say police

NEW DELHI: The personal diary of 22-year-old Nikki Yadav, who was murdered in February, forms a crucial link in a chain of evidence, confessions and witness statements the police will use to prosecute Sahil Gehlot in what was the Capital’s second shocking murder of a young woman by an intimate partner in the last year.

Notes from the diary are part of a nearly 250-page charge sheet that the police is expected to file next week, officials aware of it said, detailing some key aspects of the indictment, including Yadav’s detailing of specific incidents and of Gehlot’s reluctance to marry her, which was the main motive for her murder.

“In the last few pages, she wrote about her sadness because Gehlot was not able to convince his parents about their relationship and wedding. She mentioned Gehlot telling her that ‘he did not want his parents to die over a girl’ and that he did not want to go against his family,” said an officer, asking not to be named.

Gehlot allegedly killed Yadav on February 10 in the parking lot of Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat crematorium, drove more than 40km to his family-owned restaurant in northwest Delhi’s Najafgarh, where he left the body in the trunk to return home to marry another woman in the evening. He then came back to the restaurant later that night to stuff the body into a fridge.

Gehlot, some members of his family and friends are behind bars for their roles in the case, from plotting the murder to aiding and abetting the crime, to trying to destroy evidence.

In the diary, Yadav mentioned her secret wedding with Gehlot at an Arya Samaj Temple in Greater Noida in October 2020, and the subsequent problems that cropped up due to it, the officer quoted above said, adding that the mention of the couple’s relationship is in at least 20 of the 50 pages. Investigators have recorded statements of more than 40 witnesses.

These include Yadav’s sister and her friend, who were the last people to see Yadav alive and leaving the rented flat with Gehlot in his cousin’s white Hyundai Verna car around 5am on February 10, and a security guard at Nigambodh Ghat, who had seen the couple in the car at the parking lot where she was finally strangled to death, according to disclosures made by Gehlot.

“Since we doubted that at least a couple of witnesses, including the friend of Yadav’s sister, may turn hostile because of different reasons, their statements were recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. We did not want to take any risk as them turning hostile would weaken the case,” said a second officer, asking not to be named.

“Initially, Gehlot claimed he committed the entire crime by himself. But technical investigation revealed that he killed Yadav on the directions of his father; his two cousins, and two friends, Lokesh Singh and Amar Singh,” he said.