Grisly Nithari murders: Koli, Pandher 'not guilty'

Court expresses its anguish over the quality of probe, says sleuths 'botched up' an investigation into the deaths of children

- Peeyush Khandelwal and Jitendra Sarin

The Allahabad high court on Monday acquitted Noida resident Surinder Koli and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher in a raft of cases linked to the grisly 2006 murders of at least 19 victims, women and young children among them, on the fringes of the Capital, sparking outrage over the macabre crimes that shook the country nearly two decades ago.

A two-judge bench of the high court acquitted Koli, 42, in 12 cases and Pandher, 65, in two cases, slamming the shoddy investigation that appeared to have hobbled the prosecution and making its disappointment explicitly known. The two accused, therefore, went from death row to the cusp of being free men. "The casual and perfunctory manner in which important aspects of arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with are most disheartening, to say the least," said the division bench of justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi.

"The investigation otherwise is botched up, and basic norms of collecting evidence have been brazenly violated," they added.

"Upon evaluation of the evidence led in this case, on the touchstone of fair trial guaranteed to an accused under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, we hold that prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of accused Surinder Koli and Pandher beyond reasonable doubt." The grim murders came to light in December 2006 when skeletal remains, skulls, bones, and other materials of the victims were found stuffed in plastic bags in the backyard and drain outside businessman Pandher's house in Noida's sector 31.

The victims, children aged five to 14 and women aged up to 25 years, went missing over a period of one and half years. The killings came to light in December 2006 with the discovery of the remains. The police then registered the missing complaints and FIRS.