Indomitable, courageous, dogged. These are just some of the adjectives you will run into when reading about Nilam Katara, the now 73-year-old retired school teacher, who has fought a long battle to ensure justice for the murder of her son, Nitish, a 24-year-old business executive. Nitish was killed in 2002 by his girlfriend Bharti’s brother Vikas Yadav, cousin Vishal Yadav and a contract killer, Sukhdev Pehalwan.

The trial court and high court called it an honour killing. The Yadavs disapproved of Bharti’s relationship with a man not of their caste or socio-economic status. “It was their patriarchal mindset. They thought, ‘How dare our sister think of getting married without our permission’?” Nilam says.

On the night of February 16, 2002, Nitish left home for Ghaziabad to attend the wedding of a friend with Bharti Yadav. He never returned home.

“He was very particular about informing me when he was getting late,” Nilam says. When none of his friends could give her a satisfactory answer, she went to the Kavi Nagar police station in Ghaziabad to file a missing person report.

Two days later she got a call. They had found a body. The face had been burned beyond recognition. But when she placed her palm on his hand, she knew it was her son. She recognized its shape and size, not much bigger than her own.

The obstacles were there from the start.........

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