Cop under lens for hatching conspiracy with Sahil Gehlot to murder Nikki Yadav

The latest disclosures mean Sahil Gehlot did not act alone as had been thought previously. An official who asked not to be named said that at least four members met the main accused while he was taking Nikki Yadav’s body to stow away in a closed family restaurant.

Family members of Sahil Gehlot, who murdered his girlfriend Nikki Yadav on February 10, decided in the first week of February that the 24-year-old woman must be killed, investigators said on Saturday, and added that one of these people, a cousin, was a Delhi Police constable who played an active role in the conspiracy.

Sahil Gahlot (right) was arrested on February 14 for allegedly murdering his girlfriend Nikki Yadav, 24, on February 10. (ANI)

The latest disclosures mean Gehlot did not act alone as had been thought previously. An official who asked not to be named said that at least four members met the main accused while he was taking Yadav’s body to stow away in a closed family restaurant.

“They planned to kill her in the first week of February when they came to know Yadav and Gehlot had married secretly in 2021. The conspiracy was hatched so that he could marry the other woman,” said this person, offering for the first time a possible motive for the crime, which till now was believed to have been done in the spur of a moment.

The murder of Yadav is the latest crime against a woman by her partner to have shocked the Capital, months after the Shraddha Walkar case came to light. Gehlot allegedly murdered Yadav on February 10 in the parking lot of Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat crematorium, drove more than 40km to his family-owned restaurant in north-west Delhi’s Najafgarh, where left the body in the trunk to return home to marry another woman later in the evening. He came back to the eatery late that night to stuff the body into a fridge.

On Friday, police arrested Gehlot’s father, Virendra Singh; his two cousins, Ashish Kumar and Naveen Kumar; and two friends, Lokesh Singh and Amar Singh for their role in the conspiracy to kill her and in helping to tamper with evidence.

The official quoted above added that Naveen Kumar was a constable posted in Dwarka. “Before arresting these five accused, we put evidence before them. All of them disclosed that they were aware of Gehlot and Yadav’s marriage and hatched the conspiracy to eliminate the woman,” said Ravindra Singh Yadav, special commissioner of police (crime).

“We have evidence that four of the accused, who are Gehlot’s friends and cousins, met him on the way when he was taking Yadav’s body in the car. They suggested to Gehlot that the body be stuffed in a refrigerator at a dhaba in Mitraon village. Despite having knowledge about Yadav’s murder, all the accused went ahead with Gehlot’s marriage to another woman,” he added.

The couple had married on October 1, 2021 at an Arya Samaj temple in Noida. An Arya Samaj temple official told HT that some people from the Gehlot family approached the priest on Wednesday and sought to tear off the marriage register. Police were, however, yet to confirm the allegation.

“They asked me whether I remembered Gehlot’s marriage with Yadav. But as I could not exactly recall the marriage, I refused. After that, when one of them told me to show the marriage register, I realised something was amiss and said that the register was with the management committee. They then threatened me to tear off all the pages which had records of all marriages which took place in the last three months of 2020 and left,” he said.

According to the priest, the couple had come to the temple with some friends as witnesses.

According to the official quoted in the first instance, Gehlot told investigators that after the wedding, Yadav was pressuring him to marry her in a formal ceremony. When he told his family about this, the five accused allegedly planned to eliminate Yadav, this person added.

Gehlot told the five accused about the murder soon after strangling her with a mobile phone data cable, police said on Friday.

Gehlot was arrested on February 14 by crime branch officials for allegedly killing Yadav hours before marrying another woman. Investigators said that at the time Gehlot and Yadav were in a relationship, and were living together for the past few years.