Nitish Katara Murder Trial: A 21st Century Love Story

Most of us have grown up hearing, reading and at times watching on celluloid screens – stories on eternal undying love. Even though some of them ended up in tragedy but they still gave us hope that “true” love does exist.

A typical setting where two individuals belonging from different sections of the society be it in terms of wealth, stature or religion, are brought together by faith and fall in-love as easily. But as destiny would have it, they were not meant to be and our separated by force and in worst situations by death.

But gone are the days of Soni-Mahiwal and Heer-Ranjha, today we are living in the 21st century and as some would call it the ‘Kalyug’ era.

Nitish Katara a young man of 24, fell inlove with his college friend Bharti Yadav – a young, charming lady belonging to politically influential family. Against family’s wishes, both of them continued their intimate relationship.

And one night during a common friend’s wedding, Nitish disappeared only to be found life-less after couple days. Vishal and Vikas Yadav, Bharti’s brothers were accused of abducting and murdering Nitish Katara. Their motive – to end Bharti’s love tangles with Nitish.

Since then the Katara family has been knocking on doors of our (oh so very efficient) Law & Order system – searching for answers and bringing his killers who so effortlessly gutted their young son’s life, to justice. The only person they could count on was Bharti, the sole witness to the series of events leading upto Nitish’s murder. But unlike, Juliets of the past who ended up giving up their own lives in the name of love, this one simply chose to walk away.

It has taken nearly 5 years and countless numbers of court hearings for the prosecution to get Bharti Yadav, the prime witness in the case back from London to India to testify.

Finally yesterday, she made her first appearance in court and not surprisingly she disclaimed everything said by her to the police and the Katara Family back in 2002.

TOI reports:

There is no authoritative word yet on whether the prosecution had declared Bharti hostile for deviating from the statement she is claimed to have given against Vikas to the police shortly after Nitish Katara’s murder in 2002.

The immediate point of interest was her testimony on her relationship with the deceased as that is alleged to have provoked Vikas and her cousin Vishal Yadav to kill Nitish.

TV channels ran stories saying that Bharti played down her relationship, claiming she was just friends with Nitish and was not in love with him.

If such a line has indeed been taken by her, it could have been to favour the accused as it undermines the motive attributed by the prosecution to the crime in question.

This was not all. There were other ways in which Bharti was speculated on TV channels to have tried to weaken the prosecution’s case:

She denied that she had ever given a statement to the police under Section 161.

She denied that she had sent to the Kataras any email incriminating her family members in the murder.

She denied that she had spoken to Neelam Katara over her mobile on the night Nitish disappeared.

From her first court appearance it’s clear that Ms. Bharti has succumbed to family pressures and has turned hostile towards siding with the truth. And the prosecution would have to practically work their butt-off, if they intend to get the truth out of their prime witness.

Sadly for the Kataras, their only ray of hope could turn out to be the main reason behind their son’s killers walking away as free men in the eyes of the law.