17-yr wait for justice was meaningless, say distraught families

Minutes after the Allahabad high court acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher and Surinder Koli in relation to the 2006 serial murders of Nithari, a man let out a loud cry in front of the D-5 kothi in Noida. "How can they walk free? They killed my niece," the 52-year-old said.

- Ashni Dhaor

A 48-year-old man, furious and heartbroken, threw a brick at the D-5 Kothi - which now stands swallowed by overgrown shrubs and vines.

"So, no one killed my son? No one killed the dozen other children?" he asked.

Questions, anger, and grief engulfed the families of the 19 children whose remains were recovered from the site and were killed between 2005 and 2006 in Noida's Nithari. In December, 2006, the murders came to light when skeletal remains, skulls, and bones were found near house number D-5 in Sector 31, where Pandher - a businessman lived, as did his help, Koli.

Pandher and Koli had been awarded the death sentence by the CBI court, Ghaziabad in July 2017. On Monday, the Allahabad HC acquitted them and said "the investigation otherwise is botched up, and basic norms of collecting evidence have been brazenly violated."