Sahil Gehlot danced, enjoyed his engagement party with friends before killing Nikki Yadav

Nikki Yadav had allegedly managed to convince Gehlot to go on a short trip to Himachal Pradesh before his marriage on February 10.

Sahil Gehlot danced and enjoyed with his friends at his engagement ceremony on February 9 and later strangled his live-in partner Nikki Yadav and stuffed her body inside a refrigerator following an heated argument, police claimed on Wednesday.

Nikki Yadav was allegedly strangled to death by Gehlot who stuffed her body inside a refrigerator of his dhaba (eatery) in southwest Delhi. The crime came to light only on February 14 when the body of 23-year-old Nikki Yadav was recovered from the refrigerator following Gehlot's questioning, police claimed.

After the engagement party, Gehlot had gone to Nikki Yadav's rented house in Uttam Nagar. During his stay there, Yadav had allegedly managed to convince Gehlot to go on a short trip to Himachal Pradesh before his marriage on February 10, they said.

The accused did not inform his family members about his relationship with Nikki Yadav. His family was putting pressure on him to get married with some other girl and finally in December 2022, engagement and marriage of the accused with another girl were fixed for February 9 and 10.

A senior officer said during the second day of interrogation, Gehlot told the police that he was in "double mind" and could not take a decision on whether he wanted to go ahead with his live-in partner or marry the woman his parents had arranged for him.

Narrating the sequence of event, the accused told police that he had left Yadav's residence around 15 days before the incident but after his engagement on February 9, he visited her house in Uttam Nagar and he spent the night there with her, he said. "Yadav had already made plans that she wanted to go to Goa with him and had already booked her tickets but when she tried booking Gehlot's ticket through a travel application, his ticket could not be booked. So they changed the plan and decided to visit Himachal Pradesh. "They went to Nizamuddin railway station in his car where they found out that they will have to board a bus from Anand Vihar bus Terminus but on reaching there, they were informed that the bus will start from the Kashmere Gate ISBT," the officer said.

After reaching Kashmere Gate, the accused parked his car and both of them started having a conversation about his scheduled wedding, police said.

During questioning, Gehlot told police that during their conversation, Yadav showed her displeasure over his engagement and that he was about to marry another woman. She urged him to go on a trip with her to Himachal Pradesh. Gehlot was in double mind since he was also under pressure from his family to marry the woman they had fixed his marriage with.

"His wedding plan made her angry and she showed her displeasure. Infuriated, Gehlot strangled her and took her body to his dabha in village," the officer said.

Police suspect that he wanted to get rid of his live-in-partner and was trying to mislead her by assuring her that they would go for a trip, officials said. "He said he was in double mind. These are all his version because through local enquiries, we came to know that he was dancing and having fun during his engagement. So, it is important to corroborate his version with strong evidence including CCTVs, technical evidence along with forensic examination to make this a strong case. The exact time when he killed her has not been revealed by him yet," the officer said.

Yadav's body was recovered on Tuesday morning from the refrigerator at the eatery, four days after the murder.