NEW DELHI: Nikki’s father Sunil Yadav, who runs a motor repairs business in Gurgaon, could not reach his daughter on phone since Saturday morning. He was informed by Nikki’s friend that she was not at her rented room in Bindapur area and that she was last seen with Sahil Gehlot.
Yadav got Gehlot’s friends to give him the man’s phone number and contacted him. “For three days, I asked him where my daughter was. Each time Sahil said something. He finally told me that she had gone to Dehradun and Mussoorie for a vacation,” Yadav told TOI. “He also told me he was busy with his wedding.”
Yadav said his daughter was in the final year of her MA degree course and wanted to go on and earn a PhD degree. He said, “Nikki was determined to become a professor and was working hard to achieve her dream. We did not know about her relationship with Sahil Gehlot. I only reached out to him after his friends gave me his number and was informed that she was last seen with him.”
Love, murder and marriage, all in one day: Nikki Yadav's killing shocks Delhi
The father said he had first called Gehlot on Saturday and then followed up with more calls, but had been misled each time. “After telling me she had gone to Dehradun and Mussoorie for a vacation, he then told me he was in the middle of his wedding and was very busy,” said Yadav. “When I called his parents, they first said he had gone out and later said they didn’t know anything about Nikki.” Yadav said he had recorded his conversations with Gehlot and his parents.
Nikki had visited home in Jhajjar around a month ago. She kept in touch with her parents and siblings and called them daily. Therefore, when she did not call home on Saturday or the following days, Yadav got worried, his anxiety increasing when his daughter’s friend said that she wasn’t in her room in Bindapur.
The Yadavs got a call from police on Tuesday morning around 10.30am.
“They told me to come to the police station regarding my daughter. There I learnt what had happened to my daughter,” said Yadav. “We are simple people who came to the city for work every day and then returned home.”
Relatives revealed that Nikki had left the village after her schooling. “We did not know about Sahil. She had never mentioned him to us,” said one of them. While grieving, they felt angry at the senseless crime too. “I want this man to be hanged for the crime,” said Yadav.
The story of Sahil has a disturbing similarity to that of Aaftab Poonawala, who murdered Shraddha Walkar by strangling her in a moment of anger in May last year. Poonawala then dismembered Walkar's body into 35 pieces and stored them in a 300-liter refrigerator before disposing of the body parts in a forest.
Sakshi Chand is a Special Correspondent with The Times of India, ...
Read MoreSakshi Chand is a Special Correspondent with The Times of India, Delhi. She has been writing for TOI since 2019. She covers crime, traffic and prisons.
Read Less