The Hindu : Yadavs confess to killing

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Saturday, Mar 02, 2002

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Yadavs confess to killing
By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH. 1. The main accused in the Nitish Katara kidnapping-cum-murder case, Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal, today confessed to having kidnapped and killed Nitish before the Ghaziabad police during interrogation. Police have also recovered the weapon of offence and a wrist watch at the instance of the accused.

According to the Deputy Inspector General (Meerut Range), Arun Kumar, the accused confessed to having murdered Nitish around 3.30 a.m. after kidnapping him from a banquet hall in Ghaziabad past midnight on February 16.

A hammer and the wrist watch of Nitish were recovered at the instance of the accused from the place where the charred body was found. The police have been treating the body as that of Nitish for all practical purposes, pending the arrival of the findings of the DNA tests.

The police team which interrogated the Yadav cousins took them to Delhi, Alwar and Khurja. The vehicle used in the incident was apparently kept at Alwar. However, the team could not recover the vehicle. Police suspect the vehicle had been removed from the place.

However, the exact sequence of events is yet to be reconstructed as the claims made by the accused were not verified. ``The remand time was not enough to complete the interrogations and effect the recoveries,'' a police official said.

The accused had claimed that after the fight, in which Nitish was killed, they had handed over the body to one ``Pehalwan'' for disposing. ``Pehalwan'' has yet not been identified by the police.

The police have also applied for further remand of the accused. ``We have applied to the court seeking further police remand as recovery of the vehicle, ascertaining the role of accomplices as well as verifying the claims made by the accused is yet to be done,'' Mr. Kumar said.

However, no date has been finalised for the application to come up before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court issued directions to the Senior Superintendent of Police (Ghaziabad), Prashant Kumar, to associate himself personally with the case and file a status report on March 14 along with an affidavit. Also, the court directed the police to record the statement of Bharati Yadav, sister of Vikas _ whose reported love affair with Nitish was disliked by Vikas and apparently led to the incident.

The police had earlier summoned Bharati, but had been claiming that she had not appeared before them.

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