GHAZIABAD: In the Nithari rapes and killings of 2006 that shocked the nation to the core, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surender Koli were both sentenced to death by a CBI court.
Pandher and Koli were found guilty of rape, murder and abduction by special judge Pawan Kumar in the killing of a 20-year-old woman, Pinky Sarkar.
The judge called the crime “rarest of rare”. Koli and Pandher were present in court.
This is the eighth of several cases registered against them by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2006.
Prosecution lawyer JP Sharma, asking for the death sentence for the two, argued that forensic evidence proved Koli kidnapped, killed and raped the woman and also tampered with evidence.
On October 5, 2006, the woman was returning home from work. She took the road outside Pandher’s home in the Nithari area of Noida.
Koli lured her inside, where she was killed and beheaded. Investigators found her skull behind the house.
Defence lawyer Devraj Singh pleaded for minimum punishment for Pandher saying he suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.
The gruesome cases surfaced when the police discovered the skulls and bones of 16 persons, mostly children, near Pandher’s house.
The bone-chilling details that were revealed during investigations included Koli’s cannibalism.
