New Delhi: Twenty-four-year-old Sahil Gehlot roamed Delhi’s streets with girlfriend Nikki Yadav on the night of 9 February, before killing her the next morning.
He strangled her with a phone cable in the parking lot near Nigambodh Ghat between 8.30 and 9 am on 10 February, according to new information sourced news agency ANI.
Gehlot then deleted all data, including their WhatsApp chats, on Nikki’s phone.
The crime branch of the Delhi Police are examining CCTV footage in the Uttam Nagar area where Nikki lived, and also in Nizamuddin and Kashmiri Gate. The police have also questioned a few people living near Nikki’s rented accommodation in Uttam Nagar.
Gehlot is in judicial custody for the murder of the 23-year-old from Haryana’s Jhajjar.
In a modus operandi chillingly similar to the Shraddha Walkar case, Gehlot dumped Nikki’s body in a refrigerator in his family eatery in southwest Delhi within hours after the murder.
He then went off to marry another girl – his parents’ choice — that very day.
Also on that day, the police received an anonymous call, alerting them of the crime. After they found no missing complaint filed n Nikki Yadav, officers called on Gehlot’s number and found it to be switched off.
When the team arrived at Gehlot’s village Mitraon, he had already fled the area. After an intensive search, the police found him in the nearby Kair village.
Gehlot then told the police where he had hid Nikki’s body, which was recovered from the freezer on Tuesday morning.
According to the police, Gehlot confessed to his crime during interrogation. He allegedly killed Nikki in a fit of anger, when she confronted him about his marriage.
Special Commissioner Ravindra Yadav has said the murder was detected in the nick of time. “After his marriage, Gehlot could have disposed of the body. Then it would have been a difficult process – to collect and match DNA, gather witnesses, the trial would have also run for a long time,” he said. The recovered body was enough to get a conviction, Yadav said.
Also read: From love on a bus to fight over a woman — story of live-in partners that ended in Nikki’s murder