New Delhi: Being a prime witness in a murder case isn’t always glamorous or noble. Just ask Ghaziabad resident Ajay Katara.
He has been physically attacked, shot at, and poisoned multiple times over two decades. Katara is currently fighting off 37 cases, including rape, extortion, kidnapping, and theft. He has to be surrounded 24/7 by gun-wielding security guards and can’t go anywhere without them.
All because he chose to give his testimony and depose in the high-profile 2002 Nitish Katara murder case and is responsible for putting the killers—Vikas and Vishal Yadav, the son and nephew of politician DP Yadav—behind bars.
For 21 years, Katara’s life has been dictated by the testimony he gave on the witness stand and his repeated decisions not to give in to pressure and change that testimony.
He’s been running pillar to post, from police station to courtroom, just to stay above water. When he’s not worrying about his life, he’s worrying about court cases.
Katara has 37 cases filed against him and has filed over 10 counter-cases himself. He has to go to court every time one of these cases is heard—as well as whenever the Yadavs’ furlough or parole hearings come up.
All I did was tell the truth. I don’t want money. I don’t even want respect. I just want to be left alone.
—Ajay Katara, prime witness in the Nitish Katara case
In a crowded Supreme Court chamber, on 9 September, Katara finds himself standing through an hour-long hearing behind an arsenal of robed lawyers arguing his case. Of the 37 cases against him, 35 have been closed. The hearing he is attending is one such case that’s been reopened, where he’s been accused of raping a woman he swears he’s never met.
Throughout the hearing, he can barely hear what the lawyers are saying. After the matter has been heard, he anxiously asks the lawyers streaming out of the court if the judge said anything specific to protect him or clear his name, but no such luck.
It’s just a matter adjourned to another day.
“In 2003, when I gave my testimony, the court warned me that my life will be like this,” Katara told ThePrint. “And they said that they will support me, but that this is the price of being a witness. This is the price I’m paying for telling the truth.”
He is no VIP, but his ordinary life is now shrouded in high-level security with police officers on speed dial. His story is a cautionary tale in India, where witnesses to murders and even road accidents hesitate to come forward. Even the Good Samaritan Law, passed in 2016, hasn’t prevented the process from becoming a punishment for witnesses.
A study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) notes that 31.66 per cent of people are reluctant to act as good samaritans, and around 26.5 per cent of witnesses turn hostile to avoid harassment—unlike Katara.
Katara is not a quiet man nor a shy one. He paces around his tiny house like a caged tiger, springs to his feet when he wants to make a point, and orders his security around like they’re family. But in the Supreme Court complex, he shrinks to the periphery, looking small and overwhelmed by the institution he’s reposed his faith in.
“All I did was tell the truth,” he said. “I don’t want money. I don’t even want respect. I just want to be left alone.”
A cat-and-mouse game
Katara clashed with Vikas Yadav one fateful night in February 2002.
He was returning from a family friend’s birthday party on his scooter when a white car banged into him. The car came to a grinding halt, and out stepped Vikas and Vishal Yadav. A distressed Katara remembers them raising their voices at each other. Before the altercation could get worse, he decided to be on his way and return home.
But not before he spotted a man in a red t-shirt sitting shotgun. Two days later, that man’s face was plastered all over the news—he had been found murdered.
Going to the police was a no-brainer for Katara. He not only said that he saw Nitish Katara in the car, but also identified Vikas and Vishal as accompanying him. And that’s when his entire life changed.
Anything Katara touches now turns to dust.
I have nothing to do with him [Katara]. I don’t need to do anything against him—whatever is coming out against him are his own mistakes. He’s getting caught in his own trap.
—DP Yadav, former cabinet minister
His first marriage fell apart, as did his businesses. He’s had to move houses multiple times and register property and belongings in relatives’ names. Since the Nitish Katara case went to trial in 2003, his life has been like a never-ending cat-and-mouse game, forcing him to constantly look over his shoulder and live in a perpetual state of paranoia. And he blames DP Yadav for it all.
Katara wakes up and falls asleep to the thought of DP Yadav. He constantly replays snatches of conversations and pictures of faces in his head, trying to figure out if they’re connected to the politician. And he traces it all back to that one moment in the courtroom that turned him into a witness the state needed to protect—when Vikas banged his fist on a courtroom table and told Katara he would make sure he’s buried 100 feet in the ground.
The defence’s case rested on trying to convince the court that Katara was perjuring himself and that he was related to Nitish Katara—when their shared surname just happened to be a coincidence.
As the case made its way through the judicial pipeline, witnesses and tangible evidence were winnowed down until Katara remained the only witness who hadn’t turned hostile or perjured himself. Even Bharti Yadav—Vikas’ sister, who was rumoured to be in a relationship with Nitish Katara—changed her testimony. But not Ajay Katara.
Katara insists that it’s not for lack of the Yadavs trying—he remembers being offered money and being threatened to change his testimony. While DP Yadav maintains that he’s never met Katara, the latter can rattle off a string of instances when the two came face-to-face.
“I have nothing to do with him. I don’t need to do anything against him—whatever is coming out against him are his own mistakes,” said Yadav over the phone, in between issuing orders to attendants. “He’s getting caught in his own trap.”
Katara knows he’s in a trap. He sometimes catches himself marvelling at the fact that he’s made it 21 years without losing his life.
“I think about this a lot,” he admitted. “I think the spirit of Nitish Katara is protecting me. That’s the only reason I’m alive today.”
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A life constantly on guard
The first time someone tried to kill Ajay Katara was on 1 June 2007. He recalls around 10 people shooting at him while he was driving through Kharkhoda, Haryana. His security shot back.
Since then, there have been at least 10 attempts on his life. A month after the first, on 18 July 2007, Katara was lured away by men who said they had a message for him from his first wife, Tanu, who he separated from in 2007. Katara claims that they fed him poisoned aloo tikki chaat—he was rushed to the hospital and his stomach was purged. He hasn’t taken food from strangers since.
He’s been kidnapped, too. He opened the door to men clad in police uniforms—his own police officers were asleep at the time—and they whisked him away. But thankfully, the commotion woke up his bodyguards who set chase and were able to get back up from the local police station and rescue him. Another time, he went to open his metal front door and received an electric shock—someone had taped a live wire to his door frame on the outside.
The worst incident was when he was returning from a court hearing in 2008, when he was shot at from another car. His bulletproof vest bore the brunt of two bullets to his chest.
All these attempts on his life are not exactly a badge of honour for him, but a lived reality he thinks of every time he turns a corner. But what truly occupies his time is the incessant stream of legal cases he has to deal with.
He recites dates, case numbers, and phone numbers off the top of his head. Every case file is carefully annotated and photocopied. His every move is shadowed by security guards—he currently has nine assigned to him at all times, seven from the Delhi police and two from the Uttar Pradesh police.
The cases never stop coming: a 2013 rape case against Katara, which was quashed in 2019 by the Allahabad High Court, has now made it to the Supreme Court. And the person who filed the FIR—the alleged victim’s father, Bhagwan Singh—says he was impersonated and never filed an affidavit to reopen the case.
When he’s in court, Katara can almost pass for a lawyer, minus the robes. That’s how often he has been to court, from parole hearings to furlough hearings, from fending off what he calls false accusations to filing counter-cases on the backs of these accusations. He stands patiently in the courtroom, having arrived at 10 am for a matter listed at 1:30 pm. And this is just at the Supreme Court—Katara has had to attend hearings at lower courts across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana.
There’s no doubt in his mind that Yadav is controlling a nexus that’s out to get him.
“DP Yadav is hurting my mind and my spirit. He and his son want me to pay for his son spending the rest of his life in jail. This is like psychological warfare!” exclaimed Katara. “But God has given me this life, and only God can take it away. No one else can take it away—not even DP Yadav.”
By all accounts, Yadav is a formidable bahubali (influential) politician who has had his own brushes with the law. A four-time MLA and former cabinet minister in UP who also served two terms as a member of parliament in each house, Yadav’s family was one of the wealthiest political families in UP. His son, Vikas, who has also been accused of crimes and is no stranger to political power, was present when his friend, Manu Sharma, shot Jessica Lall.
Yadav is no longer active in politics and hasn’t held office since 2012—but has been involved in a spate of criminal activity. The first criminal charge was registered against him in 1979, and since then he’s been charged in nine different cases of murder, three cases of attempted murder, two cases of dacoity, and several cases of kidnapping and extortion.
It’s like he’s being punished for telling the truth. Who knows, his life would probably have been easier if he’d turned into a hostile witness.
—Sanchar Anand, Katara’s lawyer
In 2015, he was sentenced to life in the Mahendra Singh Bhati murder case and was acquitted in 2021 because of lack of evidence. His son has been in jail since 2008 for the murder of Nitish Katara, barring a brief sojourn out for medical reasons.
“Ajay Katara is a confirmed rapist, he’s involved in the vyapaar (business) of women,” Yadav said, calling Katara a ‘naughty character’. “There are so many cases against him, what more do I need to say? Newspapers have also reported on him.”
Katara asserts that he’s not a criminal and just a regular man—not a single case, civil or criminal, was registered against him before 2003.
“It’s like he’s being punished for telling the truth,” said his lawyer Sanchar Anand. “Who knows, his life would probably have been easier if he’d turned into a hostile witness.”
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A ‘secure’ life
To Ajay Katara’s nine-year-old son, the police who are protecting his father are like family members. Some of the policemen currently on duty protecting Katara have been around since before he was born. He calls them “bhaiya” (elder brother) or “chacha” (uncle).
Katara lowers his voice whenever he talks about his son. One of his biggest fears is that his son will be kidnapped, or that some other harm will befall him.
The case has taken a toll on his family, who have had to make peace with his bodyguards. He’s stopped receiving invites to social events because relatives will have to prepare extra plates of food for his security, he complains.
It’s not just about social inconvenience—his wife and niece were attacked one Diwali evening in 2020 when they’d stepped out to make house visits and do some sweet shopping. His wife, Madhu, was hit by a moving vehicle while she was crossing the road—the family is certain that the perpetrators were also linked to DP Yadav, trying to further intimidate Katara into silence.
Katara maintains that his first wife Tanu, who he married in 2005, was actually a stooge of the Yadav family. He recalls a particularly painful memory, when the three-month-old son he had with Tanu was allegedly kidnapped. When he went to file a complaint, his wife told the police that the child was with her all the while.
Three months later, she filed a dowry case against Katara, which went to court. They separated in 2007 and got divorced in 2009. Katara claims that Tanu is currently married to Yadav’s driver, which Yadav did not confirm to ThePrint.
To Madhu, Katara’s second wife, the whole saga is something she just has to make peace with—and sometimes finds humour in.
“Things seem to act up around June-July, always,” she laughs, referring to the frequency of attacks against Katara increasing in the summer months. “My main concern is my son’s safety. I’ve stopped asking my husband for updates on all the cases. I can tell he always has a lot on his mind, but I can only tell when things get really bad.”
Things going awry for the family mean anything from another attempt on Katara’s life to another case being filed against him. They recently bought a massive Saint Bernard dog named Roxy as additional protection. Roxy has been of some comfort to Madhu because she adds an extra layer of security to their home—and the fact that she’s attached to their son makes them feel safer.
The policemen guarding them are somewhere between family members and wallpaper.
“I’m not interested in DP Yadav, or why I’m here,” said one officer on duty, who has been with Katara since around 2013. “I’m only interested in him.” He pointed at Katara, the barrel of his AK-47 facing the other way.
At one point, while walking downstairs, the same officer draws Katara’s attention to a new imminent danger: his open shoelace. Mid-conversation, Katara immediately bends down to tie it, his rant over a particularly difficult legal case uninterrupted.
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A courtroom drama
Getting revenge and being vindicated are two sides of the same obsessive coin. What started as a matter of life and death seems to have become a game between Katara and DP Yadav, to see how long one can be a thorn in the other’s side.
It doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon.
The vendetta against him is so deep that it’s even led to a curious case of impersonation that’s made its way to the Supreme Court. The judges took cognisance of this, and after reprimanding advocates for letting it happen, stressed the need to draw up guidelines to prevent such things from happening again.
Katara is disappointed that the hearing didn’t let him fully off the hook, but grateful that even the court recognised foul play when it came to admitting the case. And he is fully resigned to this life—as one case draws to a close, another will crop up elsewhere.
“I’m just a witness. My job was just to tell the truth. I still have junoon (passion)—for truth and justice. I believe in the law, and I believe the law will protect me,” he said.
At the end of the hearing, the judge addressed the alleged victim, who was obscured behind a bright red veil.
“Is Ajay Katara standing in this courtroom?” he asked.
“I can’t see him,” she replied.
“See?” the judge asked her lawyers pointedly, further driving in his surprise that such a case had reached the Supreme Court.
“See?” Katara repeated with a sigh of relief, walking out of yet another courtroom with his head held high.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)