The Supreme Court on January 18 issued notices to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as well as Moninder Singh Pandher on a petition challenging the latter’s acquittal in the Rimpa Haldar murder case. Fourteen-year-old Rimpa was one of the 19 victims, who were allegedly sexually abused and killed in Pandher’s house in Nithari village, Noida. The Allahabad High Court had acquitted him in the case but upheld the death sentence awarded to domestic help Surinder Koli (38). The trial court in Ghaziabad had convicted both, awarding them death sentences. The Supreme Court has already stayed Koli’s death sentence. A bench headed by Justice Altmas Kabir also issued notices to the CBI on a petition filed by the victim’s father Anil Haldar after his counsel accused the premier investigating agency of colluding with Pandher to secure his acquittal.
The Nithari killings came to light in December 2006 when the police raided Pandher’s house following complaints by villagers that several of their children had disappeared. Pandher and Koli were arrested for the murder of a “call girl” Payal and later a total of 19 cases were registered by the police after human skulls, bones and clothes belonging to young girls were recovered from the house.