LUCKNOW: The special CBI court of Ghaziabad awarded the death sentence to Moninder Pandher and Surender Koli for abduction, rape and murder of a 20-year-old girl, while pronouncing the quantum of punishment on Monday in the infamous Nithari killings in Noida. The court had convicted both Pandher and Koli in the case on Saturday.
The CBI, probing the incident, had lodged FIRs in around 16 cases of serial rape and murder under Sections 302, 376, 364, 201 and 120 (B) of the IPC in December, 2006. The present case in point is case number 8 of the 16 cases lodged altogether. The case pertains to Pinki Sarkar's abduction, rape and murder.
The CBI special judge Pawan Tiwari while reading out the order, said, “They both deserve death penalty as there is no scope of reform or rehab of the convicts.”
Speaking to media after the pronouncement of the verdict, Pandher’s son Karanveer said the he would appeal in Allahabad High Court against the Special CBI court verdict as his father was acquitted by HC earlier in another case of the serial killings. Pandher, in fact, is being tried mainly for criminal conspiracy in the cases related to Nithari killings.
However, the victim's Pinki Sarkar’ mother Vandana Sarkar, hailing the verdict, said, “I want both Pandher and Koli to be hanged for their wrong doings so that it comes as a deterrence for such criminals.”
On October 5, 2006, when Pinki was returning home from work and was passing by the road outside the ‘D-5’ residence of Pandher in Sector -31 of Noida, Koli, the domestic help, lured her to Pandher’s house on the pretext of getting her a better and well-paid job. Believing him, as Pinki followed him. He tried to rape her by asphyxiating her with her ‘duppta’. Pinki resisted but she failed to fight Koli and died on the spot. Koli later beheaded her and disposed of her torso while cutting it into pieces throwing her head and garments in the drain behind Pandher’s house.
The FIR in case number 8 was formally lodged after Pinki’s parents identified her clothes in April 2007. Afterwards, her identity was substantiated after her DNA samples were matched with her parents.
Gruesome Nithari killings had come to light in 2006 with the recovery of over 19 skulls and skeletal remains, including majority of children, from the vicinity of Pandher’s house and also the drain behind it in Nithari village of Noida.
The case had hit the headlines for its grotesqueness as it was exposed as a sordid tale of kidnappings, rapes, murders of children and also cannibalism involving Pandher and Koli. Pandher and Koli were charge sheeted in 16 of the 19 cases, while three cases were closed for want of evidence. Most of the victims were young girls. Prior to the case number 8 pertaining to Pinki Sarkar, the two were convicted and sentenced in six other cases also, while nine are in various stages of trial.