The Nithari serial killings case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday.
The central government’s notification, under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, reached the CBI headquarters at the CGO complex in the evening.
“We have received a notification from the Union government asking us to begin a probe into the Nithari killings. We would soon register the case,” said CBI director Vijay Shanker. The agency will re-register the 19 cases in the Nithari serial killings.
The director also informed that the agency had received a notification to investigate the Kavita Choudhary case as well.
On January 5, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had declared that the Nithari cases would be handed over to the CBI for investigation. But the matter hit a roadblock as no notification was received from the UP government.
The notification, a senior official said, finally came on Wednesday afternoon. Sources said a Noida Police team visited the CBI headquarters to discuss the case.
A senior official said they would soon approach the Noida Police for the case papers. A CBI team is expected to meet the Noida Police on Thursday to learn about the state of the investigations. The CBI is also expected to take in its possession case diaries, interrogation reports of the accused, forensic reports and articles recovered from the D-5 house in sector 31 owned by Moninder Singh Pandher, one of the main accused in the Nithari serial killings.
{{/usCountry}}A senior official said they would soon approach the Noida Police for the case papers. A CBI team is expected to meet the Noida Police on Thursday to learn about the state of the investigations. The CBI is also expected to take in its possession case diaries, interrogation reports of the accused, forensic reports and articles recovered from the D-5 house in sector 31 owned by Moninder Singh Pandher, one of the main accused in the Nithari serial killings.
{{/usCountry}}The CBI would also take possession of the narco-analysis and brain mapping tests reports, being conducted on Pandher and his domestic help Surender Koli.
The CBI teams are also expected to call the victim’s relatives to take their statements afresh.
“Since the CBI inquiry would be focusing on all the aspects of the case including the alleged lapses on part of Noida Police officers, we might be talking to the victim’s relatives,” an official said. They did not say if the officers suspended or dismissed for inaction in the Nithari case would be questioned.
“The investigation would be conducted by the Special Crime Unit of the CBI. Special teams would be formed within the unit to specially focus on this case,” an official said.
Sources said the agency would be moving court in a day or two for the custody of Pandher and Koli. “We have sufficient time to question the two accused. Since 19 separate cases will be registered, we will get enough custody time for the interrogation,” the official said.
Email Tushar Srivastava: tushar@hindustantimes.com