NEW DELHI: Nikki Yadav and her partner Sahil Gehlot, who is accused of killing her, had planned to elope to Goa on the same night the 24-year-old was strangled to death, official sources privy to the probe revealed.
The accused Gehlot, during the interrogation, disclosed that they were planning to escape to Goa and went to Nizammudin railway station but couldn't get a ticket and changed their plan.
A local Court today sent the accused to a very crucial 5-day police custody remand and during this period the prime focus of the investigators would be to establish the sequence of events.
So far the police have learnt that Gehlot went to meet the victim woman at her residence in Uttam Nagar where both Nikki and her younger sister used to live together.
"Sahil stayed there for 2-3 hours and then both of them left the house and went towards Nizammudin railway station. But as they didn't get a ticket, they changed their plan to go to Himachal Pradesh and reached ISBT, Kashmere Gate," an official said.
Pertinent to mention here that this disclosure made by the accused is yet to be verified by the police and currently the probing team is scanning CCTV footage of the whole route to form the sequence of events.
It is when the couple reached ISBT, a very serious argument brewed between them, possibly over the marriage of the accused Gehlot. In between the argument, Gehlot kept receiving back-to-back calls from his family, which he says triggered him to the point of being violent.
The accused then strangled Nikki with his mobile phone data cable inside the car, probably around 8 am on February 10, the day he was supposed to get married to another woman. Gehlot then drove for nearly 45 km from Kashmere gate to Mitraon village with Nikki's body to cover up his tracks.
For the whole 45 km drive, the accused did not put Nikki's body in the car's boot but made her sit as if she was alive with a seat belt on. Later after stashing her body in the refrigerator of his Dhaba, he went back to his home and married another woman.
Nikki died of suffocation, no injury marks on body
The victim woman's body was sent for post-mortem at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital which was later taken to her village for cremation.
According to sources, the autopsy report revealed that the victim died due to suffocation. However, it was very difficult for the medics to ascertain the exact time of her death as her body had been preserved in a refrigerator. "The decomposition process slows down inside a freezer," a source said.
Apart from marks of strangulation, there were no other visible injuries on her body. The doctors have also preserved the viscera of the victim.
Probe on lines of Shraddha Walkar murder case
The senior officials of the Delhi Police said they are investigating this case considering it to be similar to the gruesome Shraddha Walkar murder case, where the accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala had strangled his live-in partner, chopped in several pieces and disposed of at different locations.
"The Crime Branch has done commendable work in this case. Had the accused after getting married disposed of the body then it would have again become very difficult to crack it but the Crime Branch detected the crime on time even though there was no missing report or complaint," said Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said.
He said that the police have seized all the crucial evidence including the fridge in which the body was stored, the car in which the body was moved, and other relevant things.