INDIA: On Monday, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the primary suspect, Surendra Koli, in the 2006 Nithari case, commonly known as the 2005–2006 Noida serial murders case. Further, Moninder Singh Pandher, another accused, has been absolved of charges in two cases for which he received a death sentence from the trial court. The court cited the absence of sufficient evidence for their convictions.
Surendra Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher had previously been given the death penalty for their involvement in rape and murder cases. Pandher was found guilty of many counts of rape, murder, cannibalism, and pornography in addition to the Pinki Sarkar rape and murder case.
The shocking killings were brought to public attention when the skeletal remains of eight children were discovered in the drain behind Pandher’s residence in Nithari, Noida, on December 29, 2006.
Further investigations and searches of drains in the vicinity of Pandher’s house led to the discovery of additional skeletal remains. Most of these remains predominantly belonged to impoverished children and young women who had gone missing from the area.
Within a span of 10 days, the CBI assumed control of the case, leading to the retrieval of more skeletal remains. While Pandher is currently incarcerated in a Noida jail, Surendra Koli is imprisoned in Ghaziabad.
2006: The killings discovered
The Noida serial murders, which later became infamous, were thought to have occurred between 2005 and 2006 and involved Moninder Singh Pandher and his house-help, Surendra Koli.
The killings gained attention when two residents of Nithari village came forward, asserting that they possessed information about the whereabouts of children who had disappeared over the past two years.
These two residents were the parents themselves, who were desperately searching for their missing daughters.
Later, other villagers claimed to have discovered a decomposed hand in a drain, prompting them to contact the police.
Worried parents, whose children had disappeared over the past two years, hurried to Nithari with photographs in hand.
Koli, using the alias “Satish,” later admitted to the gruesome acts of killing six children and a 20-year-old woman, known as “Payal,” after sexually assaulting them.
The police detained Surendra Koli’s employer, Moninder Singh Pandher, and Surendra Koli himself on December 26 and 27, respectively, in connection with the disappearance of “Payal.” Following Koli’s confession, police initiated excavations in the nearby area, leading to the discovery of the bodies of the missing children.
Pandher and Koli were officially arrested on December 29, 2006.
2007: Investigation, disclosures, and confession
Child Pornography: The investigative teams confiscated explicit literature and a laptop computer connected to a webcam, raising concerns about a potential international child pornography operation. Additionally, the police discovered photographs of Pandher with unclothed children, but it was later determined that these were his own grandchildren, leading to the dismissal of the accusations.
Organ trade and cannibalism: The police initially suspected that the motive behind the murders might be linked to organ trade. They conducted a raid on the house of a local doctor who lived in the vicinity of the primary suspect. Poluce found that the doctor had faced comparable accusations in 1998, but the court cleared him of them that same year. The police were “aghast” when they came across media reports indicating that one of the accused had admitted to consuming the livers and other body parts of the victims.
Following brain mapping tests and narcoanalysis, Surendra Koli cleared his employer Pandher of involvement, stating that all the deaths had occurred due to strangulation. He confessed to raping the victims before taking their bodies to his private washroom and dismembering them.
Pandher was declared to be depressed and a womaniser.
2009: Convictions for Pandher and Koli
On February 13th, 2009, a special CBI court delivered convictions and death sentences for Koli and Pandher. They were found guilty of the rape and murder of Rimpa Haldar, a 14-year-old victim, among others.
Both Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli received the death penalty as the case was deemed to fall under the “rarest of rare.”
2014: Mercy petitions declined
Pandher and Koli submitted mercy petitions after receiving death sentences. In 2014, the then-President of India, the late Pranab Mukherjee, denied their pleas for mercy.
Nonetheless, in September of the same year, the court halted their impending execution. During this period, the Supreme Court made the decision to commute Koli’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
2015: Death sentence commuted to life imprisonment
In January 2015, the Allahabad High Court, led by a division bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P K S Baghel, commuted Surender Koli’s death sentence to life imprisonment, citing the “inordinate delay” in deciding his mercy petition.
2017: Pandher, Koli received death sentence again
In a CBI special court in Ghaziabad, Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli received the death penalty for their involvement in one of the murder cases related to the rape and murder of a 25-year-old housemaid.
This marked the ninth conviction for Surendra Koli among all the cases and the third case where both Pandher and Koli were found guilty by the court.
The CBI informed the court that the victim, a domestic helper, had disappeared on October 12, 2006. Her identity was established through the clothing recovered from human remains found in the vicinity of Pandher’s residence.
2022: Koli was sentenced to death
In a special CBI court in Ghaziabad, Surendra Koli received the death penalty for his involvement in murder charges.
The judge also imposed a seven-year prison term on Moninder Singh Pandher in the same case and levied a fine of ₹62,000 on Koli and ₹4,000 on Pandher, according to officials.
Koli was found guilty of murder, rape, conspiracy, and tampering with evidence, while Pandher faced accusations of involvement in immoral trafficking. Koli had previously been sentenced to death in more than 10 cases, while Pandher had received the death penalty in three cases.
2023: Pandher, Koli acquitted
The Allahabad HC acquitted the pair, citing a lack of evidence.
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