Rejecting the plea for death sentence, Delhi High Court today enhanced the life imprisonment of Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal to 25 years in jail without any remission and an additional five years for destruction of evidence in the honour killing of Nitish Katara in 2002.
The court held that the murder of Katara, who was in love with Vikas's sister, was an "honour killing" which was done in a very "carefully planned and premeditated" manner with "extreme vengeance".
Yadavs' acquaintance Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehelwan was also awarded an enhanced life sentence of 20 years without remission by the court which held that the crime fell in "rarest of rare category", but saved them from the gallows saying possibility of their reformation and rehabilitation is not "unforseeably foreclosed".
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Disposing of the appeals by prosecution, Katara's mother and the convicts, a special bench of justices Gita Mittal and J R Midha, however, decided to enhance the sentence awarded by the trial court to the trio, saying "amplitude of the gravity of the offence", "cries for the need" that they be "adequately punished".
It also enhanced the fines imposed on Vikas and Vishal by slapping an amount of Rs 54 lakh each on them and which is to be deposited in the trial court within six weeks.
Of the above amount, Rs 50 lakh and Rs 10 lakh would be disbursed to Delhi and UP governments, while Rs 40 lakh would be given to Nitish's mother, Neelam Katara, who has said that a "numerical figure" cannot be affixed to her son's life and she will not accept the money.
