Sahil Gehlot's father, 4 others arrested in Nikki Yadav murder case

Delhi Police have arrested five people including 24-year-old Sahil Gehlot's father, his two cousins, and two friends in connection with the killing of his live-in-partner Nikki Yadav, police said on Saturday.

"All five co-accused including the father Virender Singh, two cousins Ashish and Naveen and two friends Amar and Lokesh of Sahil Gehlot were thoroughly interrogated and arrested after verifying and ascertaining their role in connection with the killing," Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav said.

Naveen, a constable in Delhi Police, is a relative of prime accused Sahil Gehlot, he said. Gehlot, already under police custody, has been interrogated at length. Since his arrest, he has confessed to murdering his girlfriend, Nikki Yadav, because she had been pressuring him to marry her.

The two, according to police, had already solemnised their marriage in 2020.

She was actually his wife and not a live-in partner, the Special commissioner said. Therefore, she was pleading with him not to go ahead with the marriage fixed by his family with another woman on February 10, he added. When Gehlot could not convince Nikki Yadav to make way for his marriage to the woman, he hatched a plan to kill her and roped in others.

"Accordingly, Sahil Gehlot executed the plan and murdered her and informed the other co-accused persons about it on the same day ie February 10 and then all of them went ahead with the marriage ceremony," the officer said. Several other charges including those of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, and harbouring a criminal have been added to the FIR, police said.

The incident had come to light on February 14, Valentine's Day, four days after the fact, when Gehlot under police custody confessed to the crime and led police to the fridge in his eatery where he had been hiding the body.