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Surendra Koli, sentenced to death for Nithari horror, acquitted by Allahabad HC
The Nithari horror, in which victims were raped, killed and the corpses allegedly cannibalised, sent shockwaves and stirred the country's collective conscience
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad high court on Monday acquitted Surinder Koli and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher in the 2005-2006 Noida serial murders, also known as the Nithari case, in which he had been sentenced to death.
Koli has been acquitted in about a dozen cases while Pandher has been acquitted in two cases in which he was sentenced to death by the trial court.
Monday’s verdict was pronounced by a division bench comprising justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi. The bench had reserved its verdict in the cases on an appeal by the two convicts and a reference from the trial court to seek confirmation of the death sentence.
A detailed judgment is still awaited.
Koli, who hails from Mangurkhal in Uttarakhand, was handed death sentences in 12 cases while Pandher also had been sentenced to death in two cases by the trial courts.
The Nithari murders were committed between 2005 and 2006. The matter came to light when in December 2006, skeletons were found in a drain near a house in Nithari, Noida. Later, it was found that Moninder Pandher was the owner of the house and Koli was his domestic help.
Subsequently, the CBI, which was investigating the case, registered 16 cases, charge sheeting Surinder Koli in all of them for murders, abductions and rapes besides destruction of evidence, and Pandher in one for immoral trafficking. Surinder Koli was found guilty of rape and murder of several girls and was sentenced to death in over 10 cases.
Koli has, however, insisted that he was framed by investigators.
“I am innocent as all the cases against me were built up on the basis of my confessional statement,” Koli told reporters in 2019 after he was given the death penalty in the 10th case.
“The statements were given under CBI’s pressure. Even the parents of the victim never stated anything against me. I am defending myself in court since 2011 and also taking up arguments in my case. There are a lot of contradictions in statements of prosecution witnesses.”
