Nithari killings: Surendra Koli walks out of Luksar Jail a free man

“He was calm when informed about his release and did not show much emotion,” said Luksar jail superintendent Brijesh Kumar

Surendra Koli walked out of a jail in Greater Noida on Wednesday evening, 18 years after he was arrested in connection with the grisly 2006 Nithari murders and a day after the Supreme Court let him off in the final case pending against him.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted Koli in the last of 13 cases, holding that his conviction in the solitary matter could not stand when he had already been acquitted in 12 others arising from the same set of facts and evidence. (Hindustan Times)

Koli, dressed in a powder-blue shirt, black pants and a navy-blue jacket, walked out of Luksar jail at 7.16pm, drawing the curtains on a nearly two-decade-long saga that shook the country.

The 49-year-old was not received by any family members, but accompanied by three of his lawyers. Koli did not speak to the clutch of journalists gathered outside the prison complex, and his lawyers did not reveal where he would be taken.

Koli was 30 when he was arrested on December 29, 2006, after skeletal remains, skulls, and bones were discovered stuffed in plastic bags in the backyard and drain of his employer Moninder Singh Pandher’s bungalow in Noida’s Sector 31. The killings, involving at least 19 children and young women, were among the most chilling crimes to emerge from the National Capital Region.

“He was calm when informed about his release and did not show much emotion,” said Luksar jail superintendent Brijesh Kumar.

Officials at Luksar jail said Koli, who had been moved there from Ghaziabad’s Dasna Jail in 2024, maintained a quiet routine. He was housed with 35 other inmates. “He spoke to everyone normally, but no one was particularly close to him. He appeared a little happier after the 2023 Allahabad High Court verdict,” said a senior jail officer.

He used to wake up at 5.30am and have lunch at 11.30am. After that, he helped clean the barracks with other inmates before dinner was served at 5.30pm. He usually went to bed by 8.30pm. Koli was not assigned any formal work during his time at Luksar jail.

Investigators accused Koli and Pandher of 19 murders. The victims, children aged between five and 14 and women aged up to 25 years, went missing over a year-and-a-half period.

The killings came to light in December 2006 after a man who had reported his daughter missing earlier that year moved court over police inaction. Following the court’s direction in September 2006 to register an FIR, police searches led to the discovery of human remains in a drain outside the house.

The crimes set off waves of outrage that swept the Capital, especially as charges of cannibalism and sexual assault took shape. The two men were arrested in the same month. While Koli was charged with rape, abduction and murder, the Central Bureau of Investigation in its charge sheet only charged Pandher in one case under the Immoral Trafficking Act.

At the time, agencies said Koli lured the victims into the house, attempted to rape them before he killed them brutally, dismembered and ate them. They were sentenced to death in a string of cases, the last of which was in 2017.

But the cases soon began to come undone.

Beginning October 2023, the Allahabad high court, and later the Supreme Court, set aside convictions in 12 of those matters, citing flawed investigations and unreliable evidence.

Due to unproven arrest details, contradictions in witness statements and recovery records, flaws in the confession, the unexplored organ trade angle despite committee recommendations, the shifting of culpability from both accused to Koli alone, and his prolonged detention without procedural safeguards — the case, built around an “easy target” domestic help instead of probing possible organised crime, eventually collapsed in court.

The Allahabad high court in October 2023 voiced a stinging appraisal of the investigation.

“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,” it said.

According to Koli’s lawyer, after the Allahabad High Court acquittal, the investigating agencies filed appeals in the Supreme Court, which were dismissed. She added that, to her knowledge, no fresh appeal has been filed so far.

Then the Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted Koli in the last of 13 cases, holding that his conviction in the solitary matter could not stand when he had already been acquitted in 12 others arising from the same set of facts and evidence.

Payoshi Roy, one of his lawyers, said the case “exposes the deep fissures in our criminal justice system. “It reveals how easy it is to fabricate evidence and falsely implicate a poor man and numb judicial scrutiny by making sensational claims of cannibalism,” she said.

“His son, brother, and other family members used to visit him every few months,” said another official.

The reaction to his release in his home town, in Uttarakhand’s Almora district, was more tepid. His mother, Kunti Devi, died three years ago; his wife, Shanti Devi, and three brothers left the village years ago. The village he once called home is now nonchalant about his existence.

Rajendra Lakhera (35), husband of village pradhan Ishu Devi, said the residents have no objection if Koli chooses to return. “The Supreme Court has set him free, and we respect the judgment,” he said.

“Personally, and at the panchayat level, we don’t mind if he wants to live in his ancestral home.”

(With inputs from Amit Bathla and Ankur Sharma)