Allahabad High Court acquitted the main suspect Surender Koli in 12 cases associated with the Noida-based 2005-2006 Nithari serial killings on Monday. Moninder Singh Pandher, Koli’s employer, was also exonerated in two cases.
Initially, the trial court had sentenced the accused to death in these cases. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed 16 cases against Koli and Pandher in connection with the shocking incidents of “rape and murder” that had sent shockwaves across the nation.
The Nithari killing case first came to light in December 2006 when human remains were discovered in a drain near a house in Nithari village, Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
According to Moninder Singh Pandher’s lawyer, Manisha Bhandari, the Allahabad High Court cleared Pandher in two of the six cases against him. “The Allahabad High Court has acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher in the two appeals against him. There were six cases against him. Koli has been acquitted in all appeals against him here,” she stated. Pandher was named as the co-accused in these cases.
Surender Koli had previously received a death sentence from the Supreme Court in February 2011 for the murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar, one of the first victims in the series of rape and murder cases.
In a subsequent ruling in July 2014, the apex court declined to halt the execution of Koli’s death sentence and dismissed his plea for a review of the verdict upholding his punishment.
As per the CBI’s chargesheet, Koli was alleged to have raped and murdered a woman who had gone to Pandher’s house for domestic work on November 12, 2006.
Following extensive investigations, the CBI filed a chargesheet on June 22, 2007, with charges framed on August 16, 2007.
Members of the victims’ families insisted that the accused should face the death penalty. “The accused must get the death penalty. I urge the central and state governments… If they are set free, it means that there’s no law and order,” a family member of one of the victims told ANI.
A two-judge bench at the Allahabad High Court, comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice SHA Rizvi, accepted the appeals filed by Koli and Pandher, contesting the death sentences imposed by the CBI court in Ghaziabad.
The High Court’s decision was based on the prosecution’s failure to conclusively prove its case beyond reasonable doubt in these specific instances.
The accused, notably Koli, were accused of enticing children into the residence and then committing their murders, along with additional allegations of cannibalism.
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