Nitish was a close friend: Bharti

Bharti Yadav

New Delhi, Dec. 1: Bharti Yadav’s deposition in the Nitish Katara murder was made public today, in which she has claimed she was not in love with the victim, so there was no question of her family disliking him.

Bharti’s brothers Vikas and Vishal are alleged to have whisked him away from a wedding venue on February 16, 2002, and killed him because they did not like his relationship with her.

In the 30-page deposition done in-camera in the court of Judge Ravinder Kaur, Bharti denied giving any statement to the police after the murder under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

She denied telling a woman police officer in Ghaziabad that her friendship with Nitish had developed into love or that there was any marriage proposal, although she liked him. She denied gifting him a wristwatch.

She maintained it was only a conversation and she did not know it was put into writing.

At this stage, special public prosecutor B.S. Joon contended his key witness had gone back on her earlier statement and sought to cross-examine her. The court allowed the re-examination.

Bharti, however, admitted that Vikas and Vishal, as also Nitish, were present at the marriage of her friend, Shivani Gaur. She denied having danced with Nitish and having known another accused Sukhdev alias Pehelwan.

Asked if she got a call from Nitish the day of the wedding, she said she did not have her mobile phone at that time. She added she did not know if her brothers took Nitish away from the venue in a Tata Safari.

She said she was very close to Nitish but the degree of intimacy could not be judged from photographs. She maintained she did not tell the woman police officer that their friendship had developed into love and she had started liking Nitish “with my heart”.

She said she did not tell the police that Nitish loved her very much and had talked with his mother about their marriage. “I was very close to Nitish Katara but the intimacy which is being judged from the photograph is not just to me,” she said.

Asserting she had only been friends with Nitish, Bharti said her brothers were not aware of the friendship.

She admitted the photographs showing her with Nitish, a friend Bharat Diwakar and Shivani and her husband were taken at the wedding. So were the ones with Vikas and Vishal.

She admitted having sent fax messages to the court between 2003 and 2006. She asserted she had told higher authorities after the arrest of her brothers that they were very caring and loving and could not do such acts.

Vikas bail

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain Vikas’s bail application, saying it found no merit in the argument that he should be released as Bharti’s deposition was completed.