DP Yadav and his wife, and (above) Neelam Katara at the Delhi court on Friday. Pictures by Prem Singh

New Delhi, May 30: Vikas and Vishal Yadav, held guilty for Nitish Katara’s murder, were handed life terms today.

“I have awarded life sentence to both. This case doesn’t deserve the death penalty,” additional sessions judge Ravinder Kaur said, punishing the two for killing Nitish over his relationship with their sister Bharti.

The prosecution sought capital punishment for Vikas and Vishal, the son and nephew of Uttar Pradesh politician D.P. Yadav, saying they had brutally killed Nitish with a hammer and poured diesel to burn his body.

But the judge wasn’t convinced. “I can’t lose sight of the fact that there were three accused. The post-mortem report speaks of only a single injury, on the skull. It cannot be termed as murder in a brutal or diabolical manner.”

The defence pleaded for leniency, saying both were young and their conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Vikas is 35 and Vishal is a year younger.

The judge observed that the case didn’t fall in the “rarest of rare category”, involving gross brutality or cruelty, in which the Supreme Court has prescribed the death term.

“The ends of justice will be met by life terms. It is not the death penalty which is a deterrent in which a person is hanged to death in a few seconds. On the contrary, it is the life imprisonment which is a deterrent wherein the convict dies every moment in the jail.” A fine of Rs 1.6 lakh each was also slapped on the duo.

The cousins, in court when the sentence was read out, looked stoic but the women, Vikas’s mother and another unnamed relative, couldn’t fight back their tears. Bharti is in the country but stayed away from court.

D.P. Yadav came in just before the sentence was announced but immediately dismissed the punishment as an attempt by political rivals to “frame” him. Gulshan Bharti, the Yadavs’ lawyer, has said they would appeal.

Nitish’s mother Neelam, who fought the case for six years, was also present and, while she had hoped for stronger punishment, said she respected the court’s decision.

The duo were accused of picking up Nitish from a wedding that both he and Bharti had attended on the night of February16, 2002. That was the last anyone saw him alive. His charred body was recovered later and had to be DNA-tested to establish his identity.

A key witness, Ajay Katara, who had seen Nitish leave the party with the duo later retracted his statement, making it difficult for the prosecution to establish the case.