The two were charged with rape and murder and sentenced to death by a lower court in the killings in Nithari, Noida, that horrified the nation with the details of sexual assault, brutal murder and hints of possible cannibalism.
The Supreme Court of India has acquitted Surendra Koli in one of the Nithari murder cases, paving the way for his release. Koli was earlier acquitted in other Nithari killing cases.
Surendra Koli, accused in the infamous Nithari serial killings, has been released from the Luksar district jail in Greater Noida, a day after the Supreme Court acquitted him in the last pending case linked to the 2006 serial murders that had shocked the nation, officials said on Thursday.
A CBI official in New Delhi said the team was waiting for the judgment copy and would take a call on next steps after studying it.
The apex court in May agreed to hear a plea filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court's order acquitting Koli in the case.
Describing Moninder Singh Pandher as "innocent", family members of the businessman accused media of influencing a special CBI court's verdict which found entrepreneur and his servant Surinder Koli guilty in the murder and rape of a 14-year-old girl.
The Supreme Court expressed deep regret that the actual perpetrator of the Nithari killings was not established despite a prolonged investigation, while acquitting Surendra Koli in the last Nithari murder case.
Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel were deployed and barricades have been put up on the road leading to the D-5 residence of Pandher.
Pandher, in his fifties, fainted after the attack by lawyers, who were joined by the public in the assault, enraged over the grisly killings at his Noida residence.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday searched the Chandigarh residence of Moninder Singh Pandher, who along with his servant, allegedly sexually abused children and murdered them in Noida.
The Allahabad high court on Monday granted bail to Moninder Singh Pandher, a prime accused in the infamous Nithari serial killings, in five cases but he is unlikely to come out of the jail as at least eight other cases of murder were still pending against him.
At least 17 human skulls and bones were dug up from near the house of Pandher in Noida's Sector 31 in December last year. Co-accused Surindra Koli is reported to have confessed to the CBI to most of the crimes while the agency has not charged Pandher with the kidnapping and murder of the children and women, including Payal, an alleged sex worker.
J P Sharma, the special public prosecutor who argued the case before the trial court that convicted Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Kohli, explains rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa about the circumstances that may have led to the acquittal of Pandher.
Rimpa's father, Anil Haldar, through the petition, demanded that Pandher be booked under Sec 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and 212 of Indian Penal Code.
A team of the Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday searched the ancestral house of Moninder Singh Pandher in Lohat Baddi village, 62 km from Ludhiana.
The protestors broke the security barricades, pelted stones at the house and set on fire the effigies of Pandher and Surinder as a handful of Uttar Pradesh policemen looked on.
Two years after the ghastly killing of children and women in Nithari came to light, a special court on Thursday awarded death penalty for businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surendra Koli for rape and murder. While Koli was found guilty by the court under various sections of Indian Penal Code for murder and rape, Pandher was convicted on the same charges along with Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
Security of Dasna jail, where Pandher and Koli are lodged, has been heightened.
Locals gathered in front of house number D-45 in Sector 31 of Noida soon after the verdict was pronounced and shouted slogans against police and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Rimpa's mother Dolly Halder was also among the protestors.
CBI sources said the polygraph test was necessitated after she continuously changed her statements.
The main accused in the Nithari serial murder cases Moninder Singh Pandher, and his co-accused Surinder Koli found guilty of murder and rape in one case by special judge Rama Jain.
Pandher and Koli were held guilty of kidnapping, rape and murder in the case
The Allahabad high court on Friday acquitted businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in one of the Nithari serial killing cases, setting aside the death sentence awarded to him by a lower court, but upheld the capital punishment handed down to his domestic help Surinder Koli
A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Tuesday found Surinder Koli guilty of the murder of seven-year-old Aarti, one of the 19 women and children from Noida's Nithari village, whose body parts were found in a drain near the residence of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher.Aarti was the last known victim in the Nithari killings. She disappeared approximately two months before the case was busted.
However, the documents attached with the report prepared by the then sub-inspector in-charge of the Nithari police post allegedly had glaring flaws, raising doubts about the police handling of the matter.
The investigating team has also recovered pictures of Pandher watching young boys and girls dancing nude during his jaunts abroad.
A preliminary post-mortem report said there were no torso bones among the remains, he said.
According to him, it was the media that had put Pandher on trial. He also denied that Pandher was being saved because of his political connections.
Karandeep sought the transfer on the grounds that a free and fair trial cannot be held in the surcharged atmosphere in Uttar Pradesh.
The DFS will now analyse the data and prepare its final report.
No charges were framed against co-accused Pandher in the document.
The duo were produced before special CBI Judge Sapna Misra, who sent them to 14 days remand for the murder of Nanda Devi, Pandher's maid servant.
The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the death sentence of Surinder Koli, prime accused in the Nithari serial killings case and domestic help of businessmen Moninder Singh Pandher, whose house in Noida was the scene of a series of horrific rape and killings of several young girls and women, nearly three years ago. A bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice B S Chauhan, while staying the death sentence, sought a response from the CBI.
Even if the CBI has got the answers, it is not sharing them with the public.
In a deposition that may help Nithari serial killings accused Moninder Singh Pandher, the father of a victim on Thursday withdrew in court his statements that led to registration of a case of conspiracy against him.
Moninder Singh Pandher, at whose house the killings took place, has been charged with conspiracy to murder, destruction of evidence and providing shelter to the accused.
Sources said the forensic team would match their findings with that of the report given by the team of forensic science experts from Agra who had visited the site last week.
Nithari villagers on Monday fought pitched battles with the police, both pelting stones at each other, outside the residence of a businessman who along with his servant allegedly sexually abused children and murdered them.
Tests revealed that the forensic examination of skeletal remains, including 16 complete and three incomplete skulls, suggested that four of them were of adult females, an equal number of male children and the remaining were of girl children.
Till now, police had not found any parts from the torsos of the 17 people killed at Nithari, giving rise to speculation that Pandher and Koli might have been involved in illegal organ trade.
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