Nitish Katara murder case: Govt wants death for accused

The AAP government is reportedly in the process of moving the Supreme Court to seek death penalty for Vikas, his cousin Vishal Yadav and accomplice Sukhdev Yadav in connection with the Nitish Katara murder case.

The legal wing of the Delhi administration is reportedly set to move the apex court to seek death penalties for the three convicts.

Nitish, son of an Indian Administrative Service officer, was killed by Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Pehlwan on the intervening night of February 16 and 17, 2002, after they abducted him from a marriage party in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad. Both Vikas and Vishal objected to Nitish’s alleged relationship with their sister, Bharti Yadav.

Recently, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking death penalty for Vikas and Vishal Yadav in the Katara murder case. Refusing to call it a case of honour killing, the apex court said that the case does not fall in the rarest of rare category under which death penalty is awarded.

An apex court bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice R. Banumati had said that while it was a murder and could even be pre-meditated, it certainly was not heinous or a matter of honour killing.

Nitish’s mother Neelam Katara had moved the Supreme Court questioning the Delhi high court order sentencing the duo to 25 and five years sentences which are to be run one after the other. She had sought an enhancement of the sentence to death or alternatively imprisonment for whole life.

Soon after the ruling, Ms Katara had said: “I respect the court’s decision. I will come prepared with more facts next time.”

Vikas Yadav was given an enhanced 30-year jail term without remission by the Delhi high court, including 25 years for murder and another five years for destruction of evidence. Sukhdev Yadav too was awarded an enhanced life sentence by the high court and is undergoing 20 years in jail without remission.

In August, the Supreme Court had upheld the conviction of Vikas Yadav and Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehlwan, but issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the quantum of sentence.