NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Wednesday remanded Sahil Gehlot, accused of killing his secretly-married wife Nikki Yadav and stuffing her body into a refrigerator in his dhaba, to 12-day judicial custody. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Archana Beniwal passed the order for sending Gehlot to jail. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police have invoked fresh charges against Gehlot and others in the case, his lawyer said.
Gehlot along with five other co-accused will now be produced in court on March 6, in connection with the case, in which his father, two cousins, and two friends were also arrested. DS Kumar, the counsel for Gehlot, said while the FIR was initially registered under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the IPC, police have now invoked sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (common intention), 202 (intentional omission to give information of offence by person bound to inform) and 212 (harbouring offender) of the penal code.
On Monday, a court extended the police custody of Gehlot (24) by two days, while other five co-accused were remanded in 14-day judicial custody. Police had initially said Gehlot, after being arrested on February 14, had confessed to killing Yadav as she was pressuring him to marry her. However, in a twist to the case, the cops later said Yadav was Gehlot’s wife and the couple had tied the knot in 2020.
According to a top Delhi Police officer, Yadav was opposed to the impending marriage of Gehlot that his family had fixed. Gehlot killed Yadav after he could not convince her to allow him to go ahead with the wedding.
According to the cops, the accused strangled Nikki with his mobile phone data cable inside the car. Gehlot told the investigators that after murdering her, he deleted all chats and data from her mobile phone and kept it with him after taking out the sim card. The police recovered Nikki’s mobile phone from Sahil Gehot’s possession and have been sent for forensic examination.