Nithari case is one of the most terrifying cases of 2005 and 2006, magnifying known as ‘Noida serial murders’, ‘Nithari Kand’.
Nithari is a village located in Noida (Delhi). The crime took place in Moninder Singh Pandher’s (businessman man) house. This case intricate the commission of heinous crimes like sexual abuse, murder, cannibalism, and attempted necrophilia. After a continuing series of the disappearance of the children (both boys and girls) and teenagers from the nithari village in the year 2005 and 2006, the case came to light. An abnormally high number of women and children were reported to be missing from sector 31 of nithari village in Noida. Several missing reports were filed to the police by the families of the victim but no action was taken. After a victim’s father approached the court in October 2006. The court ordered the police to investigate the case. Police on investigation find lots of plastic bags filled with the human skeleton from the drainge behind the bungalow of Moninder.
Pandher and Koli (Pandher’s servant) were taken to Gandhinagar (Gujarat) for a Narco-analysis test by U.P. police. In Koli’s confession, Koli gave a detailed account of how he lured the victims 9 female children, 5 adult women, and 2 male children into the house, murdered them and attempted to have sex with bodies, chopped them in the bathroom, cook some parts in kitchen, eat their body parts and clean the bathroom and threw the remains in drainge at the back of the bungalow.
Timeline:
29 December 2006: Search intitiated in Nithari village after court intervention and the discovery of eight skeletal remains of children from the drain of a house shook everyone. The owner of the house, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surinder Koli, were arrested under suspicion.
3 January 2007: UP government suspends former SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar district; additional SP of Noida, and former circle officer. Six sub-inspectors, were dismissed.
5 January 2007: Pandher and Koli were taken to for narco-analysis test.
In January 2007: Case handover to CBI.
11 January 2007: Thirty more bones found near Pandher’s house when searched again.
12 January 2007: Pandher and Koli interrogated by the CBI.
13 February 2009: Koli found guilty for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar who was one of the sevral victims. Death sentenced passed by a special CBI court.
10 September: Trial court passed death sentence to Pandher and Koli both. In a decision of Allahabad High Court Pandher acquitted from the crime, and, confirmed Koli’s death sentence.
7 January 2010: The Supreme Court continued the death sentence of Koli.
7 September 2010: Supreme Court changed Surinder Koli’s death sentence to a life sentence.
22 July 2017: CBI convicted Pandher and Koli and said that the sentence will be pronounced on July 24.
24 July 2017:CBI awarded death sentence to Pandher and Koli for rape and murder of Pinky Sarkar, who was one of the several victims.
This is the eighth of the 16 murder cases in which the judgement has been delivered in Nithari case.
Authored by:
Shubhra Gajbhiye
M.Sc. Forensic Science
