Nitish Katara case: Court asks Ghaziabad SSP to file report

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court today asked the SSP of Ghaziabad to file a report by August 26 on the plea of Ajay Katara, a key witness in Nitish Katara murder case, that he was being threatened and harassed at the behest of powerful Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav for testifying in the case.

Additional Sessions Judge J R Aryan, who had earlier also sought a report from the Senior Superintendent of Police on the issue, fixed the matter for August 26 for filing of the police report.

Ajay Katara, who testified that he had last seen victim Nitish Katara alive in the company of accused Vikas Yadav, Vishal and Sukhdev Pehalwan, had filed the application alleging he was being threatened at the behest of D P Yadav.

The witness claimed fake cases were being lodged against him at various police stations in Ghaziabad at the instance of D P Yadav, father of Vikas who has been sentenced to life term in the case, and that he could be killed.

The plea was filed in the case against Pehalwan, a co-accused who is standing a trial separate from convicts Vikas Yadav and Vishal as he had absconded after the offence. It began in 2005 when he surrendered before the police.

Vikas and his cousin Vishal were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court for killing Nitish Katara, a business executive and son of an IAS officer, as they did not approve his intimate relations with their sister Bharti Yadav.