Seventeen years after Nithari, a small village in Noida made headlines globally for the serial killings of children and women, the main accused, Surinder Koli, and his co-accused Moninder Singh Pandher were on Monday acquitted of all charges against them, thanks to a shoddy probe by the investigating agencies.
The two were earlier awarded the death penalty by the trial court. The decision came as a shock for families awaiting justice.
The acquittal was announced by the Allahabad High Court’s Bench of Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi, that allowed the appeals filed by Pandher and Koli. While Koli was acquitted in 12 cases, his boss was acquitted in two cases.
EDITORIAL | The Nithari verdict
The court expressed disappointment at the manner in which Nithari killings, particularly the disappearance of the first victim, has been investigated. The court said the case of the prosecution was totally based on the confession of the accused.
“The casual and perfunctory manner in which important aspects of arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with are most disheartening, to say the least,” the Bench said.
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It added that the investigating agency failed to probe the possible involvement of organ trade, despite specific recommendations made by the high level committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development.
“....Nithari killings is nothing short of a betrayal of public trust by responsible agencies,” the judges noted, adding that the investigation by the police was botched up and basic norms of collecting evidence had been brazenly violated.
“It appears to us that the investigation opted for the easy course of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonising him, without taking due care of probing more serious aspects of possible involvement of organised activity of organ trading,” the court added.
“Upon evaluation of the evidence led in this case, on the touchstone of fair trial guaranteed to an accused under Article 21, we hold that the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of accused S.K. and Pandher beyond reasonable doubt, on the settled parameters of a case based on circumstantial evidence,” the court said.
2006 case
It was the year 2006 when Nithari, a village in Sector-31 of Noida, suddenly became infamous for its missing children and caused massive uproar in the country. Various complaints were lodged with the police but the matter came to light when on a cold December day, skeletons were found in a drain near a wealthy house, situated in the hamlet.
As the guardians of those missing were not happy with the police probe, which was initially hinting towards ‘drunk troublemakers’, the court intervention made the police form a special team which tracked Koli, the servant in that wealthy house which belonged to Moninder Singh Pandher. The accused, the police said, had confessed to the killing of the missing girl and claimed to have chopped her body into pieces and dumped her head and slippers in the enclosed gallery behind Pandher’s house.
The police also submitted in the court that Koli also confessed to the killing of other missing women/children in a similar fashion, and 14 more skulls were recovered on his information, from the same enclosed gallery, where digging had already started.
After initial probe by the local police, the investigation was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation which filed a total of 16 cases against Koli, in all of them for murder, abduction, and rape, besides destruction of evidence. Pandher was booked for immoral trafficking.
Ashok Kumar, who runs a footwear shop in Nithari, had lost his five-year-old son in the serial killings, who would have turned 22 this year had he was alive. He has lost all hope for justice now.
Emotions ran high as Pappu Lal switched on the television to watch the news about the High Court judgment. Mr. Lal, whose eight-year-old daughter was killed in the serial killings, has now moved from Nithari.
“Itne paise nahi hain humare paas jo itne salo tak lad sake insaaf ke liye, [we don’t have this much money that we can keep fighting for justice for so many years],” said Mr. Lal, who works as a security guard.
Durga Prasad, who is now living in a house given by the Uttar Pradesh government as compensation for the killing of his seven-year-old daughter, said no one in this world had an answer that who killed his daughter and 17 other children and women.
“This court might have acquitted those monsters but there is a bigger court of God who will not spare them,” he said.
