Delhi: Nikki Yadav's murder by live-in partner given communal twist
Social media users are sharing the photos of Nikki Yadav and the accused person with the claim that the murder was a case of “Love Jihad.”
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 17 Feb 2023 10:25 AM GMT
Hyderabad: On 14 February, the Delhi police arrested an accused who allegedly killed his live-in partner, Nikki Yadav. The girl’s body was recovered from a refrigerator of a dhaba located on the outskirts of Mitraon village of Delhi’s Najafgarh.
Social media users are sharing the photos of Nikki Yadav and the accused person with the claim that the murder was a case of “Love Jihad.”
A Facebook user shared images of the two and claimed that the name of the accused is Mohammed Sahil. He also described the gruesome murder as “the heavenly end of the secular love story of Nikki Yadav and Mohammad Sahil.”
Several other Facebook and Twitter users have also claimed that the murder was a case of “Love Jihad.” (Click here, here, and here to see the posts.)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the name of the accused is Sahil Geholt and there is no communal angle in the murder case.
We ran a keyword search and found credible media reports that identified the accused as Sahil Gehlot and the victim as Nikki Yadav.
According to The Indian Express, Sahil Gehlot (24) and Nikki Yadav (24) started dating in 2018 and were in a live-in relationship. The newspaper quoted the police as saying that Gehlot’s family had fixed his wedding with another girl on 9–10 February, and Nikki Yadav was unaware of this development. When she found out about the marriage, the two had a fight, and he allegedly strangled her with a data cable.
On 14 February, the official handle of the Delhi crime branch tweeted a press release identifying the accused as 24-year-old Sahil Gehlot, son of Virender Singh and resident of Padarth Pana in Mitraon village in Delhi. It said the accused killed his friend Nikki Yadav on the same day that he married another girl.
He strangulated the deceased with the data cable of his mobile phone in his car on the intervening night of 9–10 February and stuffed the dead body in a refrigerator at his dabha at Mitraon village in Delhi.
From this, it is evident that the name of the accused is Sahil Gehlot, not Mohammad Sahil, and both the accused and the deceased belong to the same community. Hence, we conclude that the claim that the murder was a case of Love Jihad is false.
