PTI
New Delhi, May 30: Vikas Yadav, son of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, and his cousin Vishal Yadav were on Friday awarded life imprisonment in the Nitish Katara murder case.
“I have awarded life sentence to both the convicts. This case does not deserve death penalty,” additional sessions judge Ravinder Kaur said.
The judge rejected the prosecution plea for awarding death penalty to the convicts saying “this case does not fall in the rarest of rare category.” The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.6 lakh each on both the convicts under various sections of the Indian penal code.
The two were held guilty on Wednesday. Vikas, 35, and Vishal, a year younger, had kidnapped Nitish on the night of February 16, 2002 from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and killed him.
Vikas was opposed to his sister Bharti Yadav's intimacy with Katara.
D P Yadav, accompanied by his wife and a woman relative, who were present in the courtroom when the sentence was pronounced, expressed his dissatisfaction over the verdict.
“I am dissatisfied with the verdict and our lawyers will decide the future course of action,” Yadav said.
Neelam Katara, mother of the victim, preferred not to make any immediate comments on the sentence.
“I have nothing to say,” she said when the reporters wanted to know whether she was happy with the quantum of punishment.