Nikki Yadav murder: Court extends custody of Sahil, 5 other accused

NEW DELHI: Delhi's Dwarka court on Monday extended the judicial custody of Sahil Gahlot and five other accused including his father and two cousins in the Nikki Yadav murder case for two weeks.

Accused of killing his live-in partner Yadav and stuffing her body into a fridge, Sahil, was arrested on February 14. Later on other accused were arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police and sent to judicial custody.

The accused persons were produced in the Dwarka court today after the completion of their judicial custody. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Samiksha Gupta extended the judicial custody of Gahlot and other accused till March 20.

The court also allowed the family members of co-accused Ashish and Lokesh to meet them in the courtroom.

Advocate Anirudh Yadav counsel for accused Lokesh moved an application seeking the marking of the case diary and expressed his apprehension of manipulation in the case diary.

The court will hear this application on March 13. On February 22, the court remanded Sahil Gahlot to 12 days of judicial custody after seven days of police custody.

Delhi Police arrested Sahil's father, two of his cousins Ashish and Naveen and two friends Amar and Lokesh after an interrogation.

According to the police during his interrogation, Sahil had disclosed that the deceased was asking him not to marry another girl because both (Sahil and deceased) had already solemnised their marriage in the year 2020. She was actually his wife and not a live-in partner. Therefore she was pleading with him not to go ahead with the marriage fixed by his family with another girl on February 10, 2023, police said.

Thereafter, they hatched the conspiracy and planned to remove the deceased from their way, police alleged.

Accordingly, Sahil executed the plan and murdered her and informed the other co-accused persons about it on the same day February 10, 2023, and then all of them went ahead with the marriage ceremony.

The Court on February 15 granted five days' remand of Sahil Gahlot to the Crime Branch of Delhi Police to interrogate him and to ascertain the route where he went after executing the crime.

The Investigation officer (IO) had submitted before the court that the place of the alleged offence is to be ascertained.

The route he adopted after the crime is also to be ascertained. The IO submitted that the accused is to be taken to places where he went with the deceased.

He also submitted that some searches are also to be made and recovery of CCTV footage has to be made.

It is alleged that Sahil allegedly murder Nikki as she was pressurising him to marry her. It is also alleged that he married another girl after the alleged crime.