The Hindu : Witness turns hostile in Katara murder case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 22, 2003

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Witness turns hostile in Katara murder case

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MAY 21. The prosecution in the Nitish Katara murder case has so far not been able to protect and make its witnesses say in the court what they had told it during investigation of the case.

Most of the witnesses produced by the prosecution so far in the court for their deposition have refused to support the police version of the killing.

Another prosecution witness today turned hostile refusing to identify any of the accused who were present in the court. He also failed to identify the deceased, Nitish Katara, in a photograph of him shown to him (witness) by the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP), S.K. Saxena.

The witness, Umesh Sharma, was at that time working in a private security agency. According to the Ghaziabad police, Sharma had been put on duty at Diamond Palace in Kavi Nagar in Ghaziabad where Nitish Katara along with his friends had gathered to take part in the marriage of his friend, Shivani Gaur, on February 16, 2002. Katara had been kidnapped from the marriage ceremony.

The police alleged that Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal Yadav, son and nephew of the Rajya Sabha Member, D.P. Yadav, had kidnapped Nitish Katara from the Diamond Place before his body was found in a badly mutilated shape in Bulandshahar district in Uttar Pradesh.

The witness said that the Ghaziabad police had not recorded his statement. It had only interrogated him and his father, Sharma said.

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