Charges framed against Pandher

A special CBI court frames charges of murder, rape and concealment of facts against Maninder Singh Pandher.

A special CBI court on Wednesday framed charges of murder, rape and concealment of facts against Maninder Singh Pandher, one of the main accused in the Nithari serial killing case.

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Additional District Judge of CBI Rama Jain framed the charges against Pandher in whose home in Nithari 19 women and children were brutally murdered.

The court had on September 12 directed the charges to be framed against Pandher under sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

In a related development, senior public prosecutor of CBI, Anil Behl filed an additional report against Pandher which said that 19 skulls of children killed in Nithari were sent to Forensic Lab at Ahmedabad where seven of them were found matching with the blood samples of their parents and Payal's skull was among them.

Meanwhile, Pandher's advocate Devraj Singh informed the court that he had moved the Allahabad High Court against the CBI court's order which asked the CBI court to stay the proceedings till its reply but Jain rejected his application saying it had no such direction from the High Court.