Updated News: FEBRUARY 15, 2023, 16:20 IST.
S S Nadar : Editor | news@debotimes.in

The sensational murder of a 22-year-old Haryana woman has shaken the national capital again, months after Vasai resident Shraddha Walkar‘s body was cut into 35 pieces and kept in a 300-litre fridge in Delhi’s Mehrauli area.

In the latest incident, the body of the victim, Nikki Yadav, was found in a refrigerator at a ‘dhaba’ (eatery) on the outskirts of Mitraon village in southwest Delhi. This too is a case of love turning sour.

Preliminary interrogation has revealed that accused Sahil Gahlot (24), a resident of Mitraon village was getting married on February 10 and Yadav was objecting to it as they were in a relationship for a long time.

Sources told News18 that Nikki Yadav had plans to holiday in Goa with Gahlot, and flight tickets had been booked. However, she soon found out that Gahlot was getting married. She decided to cancel the trip and confront the accused.

Police said the accused had hidden the fact from his girlfriend that his marriage was fixed with another woman. When Nikki came to know about his wedding, she had a heated argument with the accused, they said.

“The two went out on February 9 and were circling around in the national capital, following which an argument broke out regarding Gahlot’s marriage. In the heat of the moment, the man strangulated her using the data cable of his mobile phone," sources said.

Delhi police sources said that after killing Yadav in his car near Kashmere Gate, the accused let the body stay in the front seat itself. He kept on driving for approximately 40 kilometres and reached his ‘dhaba‘ in Mitraon village. The accused then stored the body in a deep freezer at his eatery, the sources added.

A police official said that after hiding the body, the accused went to his home and attended his pre-wedding celebrations. The police have seized Gahlot’s car from his house.

NIKKI YADAV’S FATHER SPOKE TO SAHIL GAHLOT
A day after the murder (on the intervening night of February 9 and 10), Nikki Yadav’s father spoke to Sahil to know about his daughter’s whereabouts. Gahlot told him that Nikki had gone to Mussoorie and Dehradun with her friends, and had left her phone with him.

According to reports, the victim’s father wasn’t aware of her daughter’s live-in relationship with the accused and got to know about her murder when the Delhi Police contacted him.

Nikki’s father, Sunil Yadav, had not spoken to her since Saturday, following which he called his daughter’s friend. The friend informed that Nikki was not at her rented room in the Bindapur area and that she was last seen with Gahlot.

Yadav got Gehlot’s friends to give him the man’s phone number and contacted him. “For three days, I asked him where my daughter was. Each time Sahil said something. He finally told me that she had gone to Dehradun and Mussoorie for a vacation,” Yadav was quoted as saying by Times of India. “He also told me he was busy with his wedding.”

He added that Gahlot misled him and told him that he wanted to go with Nikki but couldn’t go as he was getting married. “When I called his parents, they first said he had gone out and later said they didn’t know anything about Nikki,” Yadav said he had recorded his conversations with Gehlot and his parents.

According to the TOI report, Nikki had visited their home in Jhajjar around a month ago. She kept in touch with her parents and siblings and called them daily. Therefore, when she did not call home on Saturday or the following days, Yadav got worried, his anxiety increasing when his daughter’s friend said that she wasn’t in her room in Bindapur.

WHO ARE NIKKI YADAV AND SAHIL GAHLOT
Jhajjhar resident Nikki was doing English Honours from Galgotia University in Noida. She was in the final year of her MA degree course and wanted to go on and earn a PhD degree, according to her father.

The two had met in 2018 at a coaching centre. According to a report in Danik Bhaskar, Sahil began preparing for the SSC exam in January 2018 at Career Point Coaching in Uttam Nagar. At the nearby Aakash Institute, Nikki started preparing for the medical entrance exam. They both travelled to their respective coaching centres on the same bus.

The two became friends and fell in love. Later, Sahil took admitted to D Pharma in Galgotia College and Nikki joined BA (English Honours) in the same college. After this, both started living together in a rented house in Greater Noida. They also travelled to several places such as Manali, Rishikesh, Haridwar and Dehradun.

“During the Covid-induced lockdown, they returned to their homes and after the end of the lockdown, they again started living together in a rented house in the Dwarka area. The accused did not inform his family members about this relationship with the victim. His family was pressuring him to get married to some other woman and finally in December 2022, his engagement and marriage were fixed with another woman for February 9 and 10, 2023 respectively," a senior police officer said.

HOW WAS SAHIL GAHLOT CAUGHT
Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said that on February 10, a secret input was received that a person named Sahil Gehlot had killed his girlfriend and married another girl on the day of the murder.

On checking, no case or complaint about missing any such woman was found to be reported, the officer said.

As the mobile phone of the accused was found to be switched off, a police team reached Mitraon village but he was not present in his house after which an intensive search was made in the village and nearby area, the special commissioner of police said, adding the accused was later arrested from Kair village in Delhi.

“During interrogation, the accused initially tried to mislead police, but later he disclosed that he had killed his girlfriend on the intervening night of February 9 and 10 and kept her body in a refrigerator at his dhaba," the officer said.

A case under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence committed, or giving false information to screen offender) has been registered at Baba Haridas Nagar police station and the investigation was conducted by the Crime Branch, police said.