Surinder Koli spared in 13th Nithari case

Ghaziabad: Surinder Koli, the prime suspect in Noida’s Nithari killing cases, was acquitted by a Ghaziabad court in the thirteenth case, in which he was charged for destruction of evidence, abduction, attempted rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl

Ghaziabad: Surinder Koli, the prime suspect in Noida’s Nithari killing cases, was acquitted by a Ghaziabad court in the thirteenth case, in which he was charged for destruction of evidence, abduction, attempted rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. This is the first case in which Koli has been acquitted, while in the rest of the 12 cases he was awarded the death penalty by the trial court in Ghaziabad.

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The killings which came to light in 2006 relate to Nithari village of Noida where several women and children disappeared and skeletal remains, skulls, bones and other material were found from near the Sector 31 house of Koli’s employer Moninder Singh Pandher, a businessman.

It was alleged that Koli lured the victims and would later attempt rape before murdering his victims brutally, during which he also dismembered body parts and even cooked them to eat.

In the thirteenth case, a minor girl who left her house in Nithari on April 19, 2006, did not return thereafter. After a lot of search by her parents, a missing person complaint was lodged on April 27, 2006. On December 29 the same year, the police discovered skeletal remains and other items belonging to several of the Nithari victims from the backside gallery of Pandher’s house.

Koli, Pandher’s domestic help, later allegedly confessed before the police that he lured the girl inside his employer’s house and murdered her after attempting rape.

After the initial investigation in cases by the Uttar Pradesh police, the CBI took over the investigation on January 11, 2007 and filed 16 charge sheets in as many cases and charge sheeted Koli in all the cases for murder along with other Indian Penal Code sections.

Since February 13, 2009, when the first Nithari case was decided at Ghaziabad, Koli was awarded death penalties in 12 cases but got his first acquittal in the thirteenth case decided on Friday.

“The court acquitted Koli during the hearing on Friday and more details will be known when we get a copy of the order,” said JP Sharma, special public prosecutor of CBI.

During the hearing on Friday, the Ghaziabad court observed in its order that although Koli was awarded death penalties in other Nithari cases, the present was “different” as there was no “sufficient evidence” on record.

“There were no skulls, skeletal remains or bones of the victim girl found from the recoveries made on instance of Surinder Koli, after their DNA test and skull superimposition tests were conducted,” the court said in its order on Friday.

The court also stated that in the charge sheet, it was stated that Koli, on January 13, 2007, recovered a cloth allegedly worn by the victim girl.

The court order said that no witnesses, including her father, made statements that the recovered cloth matched with the clothes worn by the victim on the day of the incident.

The prosecution during the course of trial produced 33 witnesses to prove their case and relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and scientific evidence.

“The prosecution which brought the case was not able to prove it and the chain of circumstantial evidence was not completed. The prosecution could not prove that any of the biological remains recovered were linked to the victim girl. So, this does not prove the circumstance that Koli attempted rape or murdered the victim and later threw the body in the backside gallery,” the court added in the order.

Koli has been lodged in Dasna jail since December 2006 and represents his cases himself in the trial court at Ghaziabad.