New Delhi:
The handling of the Nithari case, involving serial killings of children in the backyard of Delhi’s Noida, was “botched” and was “nothing short of a betrayal of public trust”, the Allahabad High Court said in a scathing criticism of the Central Bureau of Investigation. and Noida Police. The presentation of the case in court also left much to be desired, the judges indicated. They said the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and left unexplored key angles, including the possibility of organized organ trafficking.
The gruesome case that shocked the nation seventeen years ago exposed the murder and mutilation of nineteen children and at least one woman.
Earlier today, the court acquitted main defendant Surinder Koli of all charges in twelve cases. His employer and co-suspect Moninder Singh Pandher was acquitted in two cases. Their death sentences have been revoked.
“The investigation has otherwise failed and the basic norms of collection of evidence have been blatantly violated,” the court said in its detailed order. The method of arrest, collection of evidence and recording of the confession was ‘informal’ and ‘perfunctory’.
“It seems to us that the investigation has chosen the easy route of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonizing him, without taking due care to investigate more serious aspects of possible involvement in the organized activity of organ trafficking ” said the order in the case which was based on the confession of Pander’s domestic help Surinder Koli.
The investigators said Koli had confessed to the murder, rape of dead bodies and consumption of human flesh. The murders took place at Pandher’s house in Noida and the men were arrested in December 2006 after body parts were found in an adjacent drain. In the months before, a number of children went missing in the area.
“The position of the prosecution changed from time to time… The failure of an inquiry to probe the involvement in organ trafficking despite specific recommendations of a high-level committee constituted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in Nithari Killings is nothing less than a betrayal of public trust by responsible authorities,” the judgment said.
“The manner in which the confession is recorded after 60 days of police custody without any medical examination of the suspect; providing legal assistance; overlooking specific allegations of torture in the confession itself; the failure to comply with the requirements of Section 164 CrPC is shocking to say the least,” the court said.
Koli received five death sentences in five separate cases, but was sentenced twice. In 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty after suspending the execution for a month. The issue had also reached the then President Pranab Mukherjee. Mr Mukherjee rejected Koli’s plea for mercy.
But the following year, the Allahabad High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment, citing the “inordinate” delay in deciding his mercy plea. Pandher is currently in a jail in Noida and Koli is in a jail in Ghaziabad.
