Grisly Nithari murders: Koli, Pandher ‘not guilty’

The court criticized the shoddy investigation and lack of evidence. The two accused went from death row to being on the verge of freedom.

Ghaziabad/Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court on Monday acquitted Noida resident Surinder Koli and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher in a raft of cases linked to the grisly 2006 murders of at least 19 victims, women and young children among them, on the fringes of the Capital, sparking outrage over the macabre crimes that shook the country nearly two decades ago.

A two-judge bench of the high court acquitted Koli, 42, in 12 cases and Pandher, 65,in two cases. (Sakib Ali/HT File Photo)

A two-judge bench of the high court acquitted Koli, 42, in 12 cases and Pandher, 65,in two cases, slamming the shoddy investigation that appeared to have hobbled the prosecution and making its disappointment explicitly known. The two accused, therefore, went from death row to the cusp of being free men.

“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,” said the division bench of justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi.

“The investigation otherwise is botched up, and basic norms of collecting evidence have been brazenly violated,” they added.

“Upon evaluation of the evidence led in this case, on the touchstone of fair trial guaranteed to an accused under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, we hold that prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of accused Surinder Koli and Pandher beyond reasonable doubt.”

The grim murders came to light in December 2006 when skeletal remains, skulls, bones, and other materials of the victimswere found stuffed in plastic bags in the backyard and drain outside businessman Pandher’s house in Noida’s sector 31.

The victims, children aged five to 14 and women aged up to 25 years, went missing over a period of one and half years. The killings came to light in December 2006 with the discovery of the remains. The police then registered the missing complaints and FIRs.

At the time, it was alleged that Koli lured the victims into the house, attempted rape before he killed them brutally, dismembered and ate them.

They were sentenced to death in a string of cases, as recently as in 2017. But Monday’s unexpected verdict sparked anger among parents of the young children who were killed in Noida.

“My son would have been 20 years old now but even after 17 years, we do not know who killed him or the dozen other children,” said the father of a victim as others pelted stones at the now-infamous D5 bungalow that belonged to Pandher.

But in Chandigarh, there was relief in the Pandher family. “I am happy that the judiciary recognised the innocence of my father and set him free. Since we always had faith in the judiciary, we never stopped legal battles until the truth prevailed,” said his son Karan.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the case on January 11, 2007. In all, 16 cases were filed. Koli was charged with abduction, rape and murder in all 13 cases. Pandher, on the other hand, was only charged in one case. He was later summoned as co-accused with Koli in five cases by CBI.

In one case in 2009, the high court cleared him. And with his acquittal in two more cases on Monday, he is likely to walk out of Noida’s Luksar jail where he has been lodged,said his lawyer Manisha Bhandari. “There is no case now pending against him,” she added.

Koli was convicted in one case involving the murder of a 14-year-old girl who the investigators speculated could have been the first victim of the serial killings. In that case, he was given the death sentence that was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2011. This was later commuted to life sentence by the high court in 2015.

He was acquitted in all other cases on Monday. “There is a single case against Koli now in the Supreme Court ... We hope to overturn that as well,” his lawyer Payoshi Roy told Reuters.

A total of 16 cases and 13 charge sheets were filed by CBI in its probe. Koli was charged for abduction, rape and murder in all 13 cases.

The counsel for CBI, Sanjay Kumar Yadav, said, “It’s a lengthy judgment of more than 300 pages. We are going through it and afterwards, we will advise CBI to challenge the same before Supreme Court.”

In its 308-page judgment, the high court sharply criticised the investigation and repeatedly underlined wanton flouting of norms that rendered the case weak and evidence inadmissible.

“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 organized activity of organ trading. Inferences of many kind, including collusion etc. are probable on account of such serious lapses occasioned during investigation,” the judges said.

The bench said the failure of the agencies to probe the possible involvement of organ trade, despite specific recommendations by a Union women and child development ministry panel was “nothing short of a betrayal of public trust by responsible agencies.”

“Loss of life of young children and ladies 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,” the judges said.

The bench found that the stance of the prosecution kept changing -- initially it blamed both the accused and recoveries were jointly attributed, but later sought to fasten the guilt on Koli. “Prosecution evidence has kept changing with the stage of investigation and ultimately all explanations are furnished in form of confession of accused SK, by throwing all possible safeguards to the winds,” the court said.

The judges also found infirmities with the way the confession was recorded, in addition to problems with the procedure during arrest, recovery and disclosure.

“The manner in which confession is recorded after 60 days of police remand without any medical examination of accused; providing of legal aid; overlooking specific allegation of torture in the confession itself; failure to comply with the requirement of Section 164 Cr.P.C. is shocking to say the least,’ the court added.

The court found that there was no disclosure statement or panchnama on record about the alleged recoveries made in December 2006, and therefore it was not admissible as evidence.

“Thus, in the absence of any disclosure statement; non specification of the time, place and contents of disclosure; absence of independent witnesses and contradictory version of contents of information furnished, we hold that prosecution has failed to prove the information/declaration furnished by the accused and consequently the discovery of bones, skulls or skeletons on 29.12.2006, 31.12.2006 etc. cannot be read in evidence against the accused appellant...”