LUCKNOW: In a major turnaround, Surinder Koli and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher were acquitted by the Allahabad high court in the infamous Nithari serial killings case in Noida on Monday for lack of evidence.
Earlier, Both had been sentenced to death in 12 and two, respectively, on charges of rape and murder by the Ghaziabad trial court. After HC order, the death sentence was cancelled.
The division bench of Allahabad High Court, comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi pronounced the verdict on Monday. The bench had reserved the order in the cases on an appeal by the two convicts and a reference from the trial court to seek confirmation of the death sentence.
While delivering the order, the bench observed that the investigation into the case was botched up and basic norms of collecting evidence was brazenly violated.
“It appears to us that the investigation opted for the easy course of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonizing him, without taking due care of probing more serious aspects of possible involvement of organized activity of organ trading,” said the judges.
“Loss of life of young children and women is a matter of serious concern particularly when their lives were brought to an end in a most inhuman manner but that, in itself, would not justify denial of fair trial to the accused nor would it justify their punishment even in the absence of evidence to implicate them,” said the bench.
The Nithari case involving a series of kidnappings, murders, alleged rapes, cannibalism and destruction of evidence had left the nation stunned. The matter had came to light in December 2006, when skeletons of eight children were found in a drain behind a house belonged to Pandher in Nithari, Noida.
It was alleged that Koli used to woo the children to the house by offering them sweets and chocolates. He would then murder them, have sex with their corpses, dismember them, cook the body parts and eat. He would throw the bones and other body parts into a drain or open backyard behind the house.
Further digging and searches of drains in the area led to more skeletal remains being found. Most of those remains belonged to children from humble background and young women who had been going missing frequently from the area.
Both Koli and Pandher were arrested on December 29, 2006, after the police recovered skeletons and other belongings of some missing girls from the drain outside their house D-5 in Nithari.
Noida Police had found 15 skulls and a number of bones at Moninder Pandher’s house. One of those skulls belonged to Pinki Sarkar (20) — the last victim in Nithari serial murders. She was eventually identified through her black hair clip, discarded salwar suit, slippers and the chunni used to strangle her.
Before her disappearance, Pinki Sarkar was watching a TV show till 1.30 pm, and then left for work. When she didn’t return home, her parents looked for her, approached police and even tried searching for her in Bengal. Victim’s parents, Jatin and Vandana Sarkar, on April 7, 2007, were eventually able
to identify her “salwar suit and slippers” and afterwards, “Koli also identified (her) black hair clip”.
The FIR in the case was lodged only after the parents identified their dead daughter’s clothes, said sources.
Subsequently, the case was handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation, which registered 16 cases against Koli for murders, abductions and rapes besides destruction of evidence, and Pandher in immoral trafficking.
From 2006 to 2009, several CBI teams visited the Nithari house and interrogated the accused.
The police filed 19 FIRs against Pandher and Koli relating to crimes against 19 different girls. The CBI filed chargesheets in 16 of them. In three FIRs, chargesheets weren’t filed because the “offence couldn’t be ascertained”, saidmsources.
Surinder Koli was found guilty of rape and murder of several girls and was sentenced to death in over 10 cases by the trial court. He, however, pleaded non-guilty claiming that he was framed by investigators.
While Pandher is lodged in a Noida jail, Koli is in a Ghaziabad prison.