Nikki Yadav murder case: CCTV footage of victim's final hours before her murder retrieved

In the latest development in the southwest Delhi murder, police recovered footage from a CCTV camera installed at Nikki Yadav's Uttam Nagar home on Wednesday, February 15. According to the footage, the 23-year-old was performing menial tasks hours before her partner allegedly killed her. 

The footage is from February 9, the same day of her partner Sahil Gehlot's engagement. Yadav allegedly called Gehlot to express her displeasure with his marriage decision. 

In the first video, Yadav is seen taking clothes upstairs to her rented home with a timestamp of 1.10 pm. The second video, shot at 9.27 pm, shows her peering out of a door of her rented house before leaving. She is seen returning in less than a minute.

"We are looking into the CCTV footage and scanning for more to collect evidence and ascertain the sequence of events that unfolded on the day of the murder," a senior police officer said.

Nikki Yadav (24) was allegedly strangled to death by her 24-year-old boyfriend, who stuffed her body inside the refrigerator of his dhaba (restaurant) in southwest Delhi before marrying another woman the next day, police said on Tuesday. Accused Gehlot has been arrested and is a resident of Mitraon village in southwest Delhi.

The incident came to light on Valentine's Day, and it was at the accused's instance that Yadav's body was recovered four days later from the refrigerator at the eatery, which had been locked since the day of the murder, on Tuesday morning.

The police said the accused had hidden from his girlfriend that his marriage was fixed with another woman. When Yadav found out about the wedding, she got into a heated argument with Gehlot, which led to her death. The source said, "She allegedly threatened to implicate the man in a case if he married another woman."

The police said that the couple had been dating for several years, and Yadav wanted to marry the accused. Additionally, they said that the alleged murder happened on the nights of February 9 and 10, when the victim confronted the accused about his marriage; the accused killed her in his car using the data cable of his mobile phone and then kept the body in the refrigerator, confirmed the police. 

Yadav was upset that Gehlot was getting married. On February 9, the day the accused got engaged, she called him and told him to meet her at her Uttam Nagar flat, the senior police officer said. "In his car, the accused drove to the victim's house and picked her up. She kept pressuring him not to get married.

She had already planned to accompany him to Goa and had purchased plane tickets for February 9. She requested him to come to Goa, but he denied it. This sparked an argument, and he killed her inside his car in rage," said the officer.

The accused then took the body to the dhaba, which had been closed for quite some time. The officer added that he locked the restaurant after stuffing the body inside the fridge.

The body was found intact inside the refrigerator and began decomposing slowly, the police said, adding that only strangulation marks were found on her body.

Police believe the accused committed the crime near Kashmere Gate, but the exact location has yet to be confirmed.

According to Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav, on February 10, a secret tip was received that a man named Sahil Gehlot murdered his girlfriend and married another woman the same day. Yadav said no case or complaint about a missing woman was found to be reported.

(With inputs from PTI)

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