Nikki Yadav was last seen in this CCTV footage taking a flight of stairs
New Delhi:
A young Delhi woman, who was strangled by her boyfriend with a charging cable and stuffed in a fridge, is seen in security footage from her home, close to the spot where she was murdered.
The body of Nikki Yadav, 23, was found on Tuesday inside a fridge at a restaurant owned by her boyfriend Sahil Gehlot’s family.
Sahil, 24, was arrested after he led the police to the body.
Nikki Yadav was last seen in CCTV footage entering her rented home in south-west Delhi. In the video, dated February 9, she is alone.
The police say she was killed hours later by Sahil Gehlot, a pharma graduate.
Not far from the house, the couple fought inside a car for around three hours over Sahil marrying another woman.
As the fight escalated, Sahil strangled Nikki using a charging cable, the police said. He allegedly panicked and decided to hide the body in the freezer at his family’s dhaba.
“We are looking into the CCTV footage and also scanning for more to collect evidence and establish what happened,” a police officer said.
Nikki never knew that her live-in partner was engaged to another woman. She found out a day before his wedding, police sources said. Some reports said she had threatened to file a case if he married someone else. Other reports claimed she had booked tickets to Goa and was pressing him to go with her.
After allegedly strangling Nikki, Sahil went to his parents’ home just 700 metres from where he hid her body.
The murder, which surfaced on what is widely celebrated as Valentine’s Day, has chilling similarities to the murder of Shraddha Walkar last year by her boyfriend Aaftab Poonawalla, who chopped up the body into several pieces and disposed of them bit by bit, keeping the parts in his fridge for weeks.
The police tracked down Sahil after a neighbour reported Nikki missing. Her family lives in Jhajjar in Haryana.
Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said on February 10, someone called to say a man had killed his girlfriend and had married another woman on the same day.
Police sources claim Sahil “confessed” during his questioning and revealed where he had hidden Nikki’s body.
Sahil’s new bride has reportedly gone back to her parents’ home.
Nikki and Sahil met while preparing for medical entrance exams and were in a live-in relationship for years, the police said.
Her father, Sunil Yadav, has demanded the death penalty for Sahil.