Nitish Katara Murder: Vikas, Vishal Yadav to Serve 25 Yrs in Jail

The High Court had said the “honour killing” was done in a “premeditated manner with extreme vengeance.”

Nitish Katara’s mother Neelam outside the Supreme Court on Friday. (Photo: ANI Screengrab)

The Supreme Court has modified the punishment, sentencing Vikas and Vishal Yadav to 25 years in jail and Sukhdev Pehelwan to serve 20 years, reducing their sentences by five years.

Vishal Yadav did not appeal against his 30 year punishment. All convicts will be jailed without remission.

The punishments for Vikas Yadav and Sukhdev Pehelwan will run concurrently and not consecutively.

A Bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice C Nagappan pronounced the verdict. The High Court had described the murder as "honour killing".

Happy with Supreme Court’s decision, qualitatively. Honour crime will get stringent punishment, it’s not ordinary crime. The proof wasn’t slippers or shoes, but my son’s body which was destroyed, so if I ask for 10 more years punishment, it is not a big thing.

Neelam Katara

Katara’s mother, Neelam, had filed a plea seeking the death penalty for the cousins, but the apex court rejected the petition.

Pehelwan, the third convict, was awarded life imprisonment without remission for 20 years.

Katara was abducted and murdered by the trio in the intervening night of 16-17 February 2002, as Vikas was opposed to his affair with his sister Bharti. Vikas and Bharti are the children of UP politician DP Yadav.

The High Court had said earlier that the murder was “very carefully planned and premeditated” and carried out with “extreme vengeance”.

(With inputs from PTI)