Katara case: Defence claims UP police implicated Vikas

NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh Police created 'fake' circumstances to implicate Vikas and Vishal Yadav in the Nitish Katara murder case, the defence on Thursday alleged before a Delhi court.
   
"The investigation in the case has been carried out in a way to create circumstances against the accused," advocate S K Sharma, appearing for Vishal, said before Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur.

Advancing the final arguments on behalf of accused in the five-year-old abduction-cum-murder case, Sharma said the probe was "doubtful" as the alleged offence occurred in Uttar Pradesh but the autopsy and other forensic tests on victim's body were conducted at AIIMS in Delhi.
   
"According to the prosecution, Katara was abducted from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and his body was recovered from a place near Khurja in Bulandsehar in UP," he said.
   
"However, the DNA tests, on the recovered body, was conducted at AIIMS despite the fact that there were two nearby medical colleges in Meerut and Aligarh. This fact is sufficient to create doubt over the investigation," he added.
   
Initiating arguments, Sharma earlier said that the accused were not allowed to ask material questions from the "so-called" key prosecution witnesses during the trial.
   
No doctors, CMOs (chief medical officers) of the mortury, where Katara's body was kept, were examined by the prosecution, Sharma said.
   
An FIR into the incident was lodged on February 17 in 2002 and within two days, a process under section 82 and 83 of the CrPC for declaring the accused as proclaimed offender and attaching their properties was initiated showing the "undue" haste on the part of police to implicate them, he said.
   
The defence counsel questioned the veracity of the police claim on the recovery of a hammer, allegedly used for killing the victim, and Katara's wrist watch at the instance of accused.
   
"The statements of persons, who witnessed these recoveries, were recorded after the gap of 25 days, which raises serious doubts over their authenticity," he said.
   
He drew the attention of the court towards the prosecution's allegation that the victim was burnt after the murder and said since no burnt clothes of the victim were recovered it could not be claimed that he was burnt after murder.

Sharma said that the police, instead of framing the Yadavs in the case, should have questioned Bharat Diwaker, a key prosecution witness who had accompanied the victim to the marriage party on the night, as he was the man who could have been behind the whole incident.
   
The defence's final arguments remained inconclusive and would continue on January four, 2008.
   
Earlier, prosecution, wrapping up the final arguments in the case on December six, had claimed that the "chain of events" conclusively established the complicity of Vikas and Vishal.

Vikas, son of controversial UP politician D P Yadav, and his cousin Vishal abducted and killed Katara who had gone to attend a marriage function  at Diamond Palace in Ghaziabad on the intervening night of February 16/17 2002,the prosecution alleged.