A Delhi man, accused of killing his 23-year-old live-in partner and stuffing her body into a refrigerator, was sent to 5-day police custody by a local court on Wednesday even as Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal termed the case “terrifying”. The latest incident was reported just weeks after a similar case, where a woman was murdered and cut into over 35 pieces by her boyfriend, triggered a national outrage.
"Now, a girl named Nikki Yadav was killed by her boyfriend, (he) kept the dead body in a fridge and married someone else the next day. Terrifying, how long will girls continue to die like this," Maliwal said in a tweet.
According to police, the incident took place on the intervening night of February 9 and 10 when Sahil Gehlot, 24, a resident of Mitraon village in southwest Delhi, killed his partner, stuffed her body inside a refrigerator at his dhaba (eatery), and went off to marry another woman on the same day.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Archana Beniwal granted police his custody for five days to interrogate him in detail and ascertain the exact scene of the murder and the route he took after committing the alleged crime.
The police had launched an investigation after a local filed a missing complaint about Nikki. The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of Gehlot and recovery of Nikki's body on Tuesday.
According to police, Both Nikki and Gehlot were in a relationship for the past few years and she wanted to marry the accused. However, the couple had a heated argument when Nikki came to know that he was going to marry another woman. She even threatened to implicate him in a case if he married the woman.
On the intervening night of February 9 and 10, Gehlot killed Nikki using the data cable of his mobile phone in his car and then kept her body in a refrigerator at his dhaba, police said.
According to some reports, the murder was committed near the Kashmiri Gate area and Gehlot then drove with the body all the way to his dhaba - a distance of around 36 km.
Special Commissioner of Police, Crime, Ravindra Singh Yadav said the accused initially tried to mislead the investigators, but confessed to the crime during the detailed interrogation.
The incident came to light even as the Delhi Police are still investigating another sensational case where Aftab Amin Poonawala, 28, allegedly strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walker and cut her body into over 35 pieces which he kept in a fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in south Delhi's Chhattarpur. He later disposed of the body parts across the city over several days.
