Ravinder Kaur Luthra and Nikku Yadav

Nikku Yadav, 24, was sentenced to death on Friday for the murder of 51-year-old Ravinder Kaur Luthra, in whose Ballygunge Circular Road apartment he had worked for seven years.

Nikku, who hails from Banka district in Bihar, did not utter a word when the third additional district and sessions judge at Alipore Court read out the sentence around 2pm. His parents and wife looked on as he stood silently, in sky-blue shirt and dark trousers.

Ravinder Kaur was strangled to death in her Tripura Enclave flat on Ballygunge Circular Road, early on February 15, 2007.

Nikku, who had laid out an elaborate party scene after the murder to try and mislead sleuths, was arrested within 24 hours. He has now been sentenced within 18 months.

“I hope that this serves as a lesson to those contemplating such heinous crime. Justice in India is fair,” Ashit Luthra, husband of Ravinder, told Metro on Friday.

Ravinder was found around 9am lying dead beside her bed with injuries on her neck and both sides of her face. Her palm was bloodstained and she was clutching a tuft of the killer’s hair.

She was alone that day in the seventh-floor flat as her husband was on official tour in Chennai.

More than Rs 3 lakh and $300 in cash and diamond jewellery worth Rs 12 lakh were missing from the flat.

Late that night, Nikku was picked up after giving contradictory statements to police about his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

Nikku claimed he had met with an accident early on February 15 while cycling down Bhowanipore and had received treatment at Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital.

On checking with the hospital, cops found out that the injuries could not have been caused by a fall from a cycle. The injuries were scratch marks caused by nails and there was a gash on one of his eyebrows, caused by the ring on Ravinder’s finger. She had tried desperately to fight him off, but he had managed to subdue and then strangle her.

Nikku confessed to his crime of greed during interrogation. After murdering Ravinder he had cooked kebabs, set the table for a Valentine’s Day dinner with candlelight and two glasses of Bacardi, one smeared with lipstick. The attempt was to frame a friend of the victim.

After slipping out of the complex on his bicycle around 5.30am, he staged the accident as an alibi.

The police soon recovered a black bag full of cash and ornaments that Nikku had handed over to an associate in Alipore called Babloo Mondal.

Within three months, the homicide wing of the detective department submitted a chargesheet on the basis of statements from 54 witnesses, including the milkman, the newspaper vendor and the durwan.

Nikku, who refused to speak on Friday even after the judge asked him thrice if he had anything to say before the sentence was announced, will now remain in a condemned cell of Presidency jail till the execution of the judgment.

For that, a division bench of the high court must uphold the order. The case file will be sent to Calcutta High Court next week.