NEW DELHI: The 24-year-old Nikki Yadav, who was allegedly murdered by her partner and stashed in a refrigerator for five days, was cremated on Wednesday in her native village Khedi Khumar in Haryana's Jhajjar district.
The accused boyfriend, Sahil Gehlot (24), who the Delhi Police arrested was sent to 5-day police custody remand by a local Court here in the national capital.
The victim's body was sent for post-mortem at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital and later taken to her village for the last rites. According to sources, the autopsy report revealed that the victim died due to strangulation. 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 doctors have also preserved the viscera of the victim.
With teary eyes, Nikki's younger brother and her father Sunil lit the pyre, as the villagers gathered to pay their respects. "We got to know about my daughter through the police. We demand death punishment for the accused Sahil Gehlot," said Nikki's father.
The other villagers were also outraged over the incident and demanded that the media trial should be immediately stopped. "Our daughter was not in any live-in relationship. This claim which is being run by media is completely false and insulting," a local said.
The grandfather of the victim, Ram Kishan, said that Nikki was an extremely intelligent girl. "She had visited us just last month, stayed for 5-6 days, and left on January 23. Both Nikki and her younger sister were very intelligent girls. They did their early education till 6th class and later they studied at Najafgarh," he said.
The gut-wrenching incident was reported from the outskirts of the national capital in Mitraon village after the body of the victim woman was recovered from a refrigerator of an eatery owned by the accused.
The accused Sahil Gehlot, who was in a relationship with Nikki for over 5 years, brutally murdered her inside his vehicle, a white Verna car, on the intervening night of February 9-10 near the Kashmere gate area of Delhi as he was going to marry some other woman.
He then took Nikki's body, drove for nearly 45 km from Kashmere gate to Mitraon village, and then stashed it in a refrigerator of his Dhaba. Later he went back to his hometown and married another woman.