New Delhi: A CBI court, on Monday, awarded death sentence to businessman Moninder Pandher and his domestic help Surender Koli in one of the Nithari serial rape, abduction and murder cases. Special CBI judge, Pawan Kumar Tiwari, awarded death penalty to both the accused for killing a 20-year-old woman, Pinki Sarkar.
The case, the eighth of the several lodged against them, was registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on December 29, 2006.
Prosecution lawyer JP Sharma sought the death sentence and argued that forensic evidence proved that Koli abducted, raped and killed the woman, and also tampered with evidence.
Defence lawyer Devraj Singh pleaded for minimum punishment as Pandher suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.
According to the prosecution, on October 5, 2006, the victim was on her way to home from work when she was abducted, raped, and killed by the accused. The CBI alleged that Surinder carried the body to the first floor of the bathroom and dismembered it with a knife. Later, the accused threw her head and garments behind the house. The court ruled that Pandher was involved in the entire conspiracy. Mr Singh, who was appearing for Pandher, argued that his client was not present in the house when the crime was committed.
“My client was in Dehradun at that time,” he argued. However, after listening to both prosecution and defence, the court rejected the claim of defence counsel and held both the accused guilty.
The gruesome cases came to light in 2006 when the police discovered the skulls and bones of 16 persons, mostly children, from near Pandher’s house in the Noida village of Nithari.
Earlier, many children had gone missing from the nearby slums of Nithari and their parents alleged that police had ignored their complaints.
It was alleged that Koli used to lure the children to the house. He then murdered them and had sex with the corpses. He threw the bones into a ditch behind the house. He was also accused of cannibalism.
