Nithari killings: Koli guilty of 7-year-old’s rape, murder (Fourth Lead, correcting year in opening paragraph)

GHAZIABAD - A special court Tuesday convicted domestic help Surender Koli of the rape and murder of seven-year-old Arti, who had disappeared from her home in September 2006 and was amongst the 19 women and children from Noida’s Nithari village whose body parts were found in a drain.

In the second case of the grisly Nithari murders, which shocked the nation for their brutality and hints of cannibalism, special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court Judge A.K. Singh convicted Koli. Arguments for the quantum of sentencing will be held Wednesday.

Of the 19 cases of abduction, rape and murder, the CBI filed charge sheets in 17. All the cases are being heard separately.

While Koli, 38, has been charged with rape, abduction and murder in all the cases, his businessman employer, 55-year-old Mohinder Singh Pandher, behind whose bungalow in suburban Noida the body parts were found, is co-accused in only six cases.

“Injustice has done to me because of my poverty. A servant has been implicated and an influential man has been allowed to walk free. I could not protest even after Karan Singh Pandher, son of Pandher, threatened me that my child would be kidnapped if the CBI version is not supported in court,” Koli told IANS after the judgment.

Only Koli was charged with the killing of Arti, driver Durga Prasad’s fourth child. Immediately after the ruling, Prasad submitted a review application before the special court against the pronouncement of the judgment.

He said in his application that his statement before the court that Koli was the sole killer was made under duress from the CBI and requested that it be recorded again. The court rejected the application.

However, Prasad said he would appeal to the high court to ensure that Pandher was charge sheeted.

“We are not satisfied with the entire handling of the case, so we will appeal to the Allahabad High Court, in which we will prosecute Pandher,” Prasad told reporters outside the court.

Accompanied by other members of his family, he said the exclusion of Pandher was a mockery of the judicial system. Other family members present in the court said justice could not be delivered to them because they were poor.

Giving details of the court order, CBI lawyer Sunil Batra said all the evidence produced by the prosecution and the CBI were approved by the court.

The DNA test also confirmed the identification of Arti’s skeleton and provided strong evidence.

The CBI said in its charge sheet that Arti, a kindergarten student of Sarva Hitkari Siksha Niketan, had left her house to get a chocolate from her grandfather’s house nearby Sep 25, 2006.

When she did not return, Durga Prasad lodged a complaint with Noida police. Police filed the charge sheet in the case Dec 29, 2006.

The CBI, which later took over the investigations, stuck to the Noida police theory on the murder.

Of the 17 Nithari murder cases, the judgment in the first case of Rimpa Haldhar was pronounced about a year ago — main accused Koli and his employer Pandher were sentenced to death by a lower court in Ghaziabad.

The Allahabad High Court upheld the lower court’s punishment given to Koli but gave a clean chit to Pandher, who was said to be away in Australia when Rimpa’s killing took place on his house.