The testimonies of slain journalist Shivani Bhatnagar’s sister and her friend Sejal Shah sealed the fate of senior IPS officer Ravi Kant Sharma, who was held guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy by a court here.

The court, which also relied on telephone call records of Sharma and other convicts and the circumstantial evidence, lent credence to the statements of Shivani’s sister, Sewanti, and Shah, who had stayed with the senior journalist in London in 1998.

Earlier, Shah, deposing as 83rd prosecution witness in the nine-year-old case, had stated that “she (Shivani) was deeply in love with accused R K Sharma and was pregnant”.

Shah and the slain scribe, working with the Indian Express daily, had stayed together for about three months in the United Kingdom after being awarded the British Chevening scholarship. “The duo were so infatuated that they swore to marry each other after divorcing their respective spouses,” Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri, quoting Shah, said in his 115-page judgment.

Sewanti, in her testimony, had blamed Sharma for leaving Shivani “crestfallen” as he had not kept his promise to marry her.

“Sewanti has depicted the deceased as distraught and crestfallen when she noted an antipathy on the part of Sharma.

“She also reminded a threat hurled by a contrite Shivani to expose malfeasance of the accused,” the judge, who would pronounce the quantum of sentence against Sharma and three others on Monday, noted.

The court, quoting Sewanti, who was the 26th prosecution witness, said “accused R K Sharma started ignoring the deceased. Unnerved by the apathy shown by him, the deceased threatened to ruin his career and his life by exposing him”.

It also termed the telephone conversations between Shivani Bhatnagar’s killers including convicted IPS officer Sharma, even at a time when the police were hunting for them as the most damning piece of evidence against them.

“It is well established on record that accused R K Sharma, Sri Bhagwan, Satya Prakash and Pradeep Sharma had spoken to each other at all times in flagrante delicto (frequently), which were very crucial.”