Nitish Katara murder: Delhi HC upholds life sentence for 3 convicts

New Delhi: Nearly a year after reserving its verdict, the Delhi High Court has upheld the life sentences for the three men convicted of abducting and killing Nitish Katara in 2002. A bench of Justice Gita Mittal and Justice JR Midha had reserved the verdict on appeals of Vikas Yadav, son of Uttar Pradesh politician DP Yadav, his cousin Vishal and Sukhdev Yadav on 16 April, last year after hearing final arguments. [caption id=“attachment_1462067” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  One of the accused in the Nitish Kataria court case walking out of court: AFP[/caption] The lawyers for the convicts, state and Neelam Katara, mother of the victim, had started advancing final arguments on 16 April, 2012. Vikas, Vishal and Sukhdev Pehalwan are serving life term for abducting and killing Nitish Katara, a business executive and son of an IAS officer, on the intervening night of 16-17 February, 2002. Neelam Katara welcomed the court’s verdict and said that the case was not one of ‘honour killing’ as claimed by some but a ‘power killing’ where the accused thought they could get away thanks to their clout. “They commit murder and then claim it is about honour,” she said. It has been a very tough personal battle, Katara said. Katara said that hostile witnesses during the course of the trial wasn’t the only problem and it had been very difficult to find witnesses against the accused given their political clout. “It is important to stop criminalisation of politics,” she said. The court has heard five appeals filed by three convicts against their conviction and one each from the prosecution and Neelam Katara, seeking the death penalty. However, the court had decided to segregate the appeals filed by the victim’s mother and the prosecution from that of convicts. The prosecution had alleged that the Yadavs allegedly killed the victim as they did not approve of his alleged affair with their sister Bharti Yadav. Vikas and Vishal were convicted by the trial court in 2008. Their accomplice Pehlwan, who had absconded for some time but was arrested in 2005, was tried separately and sentenced to a life term by the trial court. With inputs from PTI