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Minutes before he allegedly killed his girlfriend of five years on the intervening night of 9 and 10 February in Delhi, Sahil Gehlot got a slew of calls from home with relatives urging him to return home. After all, the 24-year-old was to get married amid much fanfare in a few hours. Dressed in an off-white suit, Gehlot posed for photos with his wife on a decked-up stage at their wedding venue on 10 February.
Three days later, he was arrested by the Delhi police's Crime Branch for allegedly strangulating 23-year-old Nikki Yadav -- his girlfriend and live-in partner -- and then hiding her body inside a fridge at a dhaba in Mitraon village on the outskirts of Delhi. An FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence committed) of the IPC has been filed at Dwarka's Baba Haridas Nagar police station.
A senior police officer claimed to The Quint, "Sahil and Nikki met on 9 February and were together for many hours. Since his phone kept ringing with people asking him to return home since it was his wedding in a few hours, an argument ensued between Nikki and Sahil. He wanted to go home and get married, and she wanted him to call off the wedding... That's when he strangulated her."
On 14 December, Special CP (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav had said that it was in December 2022 that Sahil's wedding was fixed with another woman -- a fact the accused allegedly "hid from the victim." A senior police officer claimed to The Quint that "whatever deal he offered to Nikki was unacceptable to her."
The Delhi police officer, on condition of anonymity, claimed to The Quint that from 10 February to 13 February, Sahil was "trying to figure out how to dispose off the body." The officer alleged, "Sahil had no plans of running away since that would have caused more doubt... He also had a lot on his plate as he had just been married. During interrogation, he said that he couldn't understand what to do with the dead body."
While Nikki's family has maintained that they did not know Sahil at all, the officer claimed that the deceased's sister knew the accused as he would often visit them at the Dwarka house where the two sisters lived together. Nikki was not reported missing by her family and a senior police officer claimed that it's because her parents were under the impression that she was on a holiday.
"We did not get any complaints from the parents. One of our secret informants gave us a tip off about something being amiss," said the police officer. On Thursday, the Delhi police will question Nikki's parents and her siblings. "We will not be interrogating Sahil's wife... at least not now. She herself is a victim since she got entangled in this," said the senior police officer.
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