Koli acquitted: Who killed the Nithari victims?

New Delhi,UPDATED: Nov 13, 2025 13:59 IST

A landmark acquittal in the Nithari killings reopens haunting questions about justice, flawed investigations, and the disturbing possibility of an organ-trafficking network behind the gruesome disappearances of children.

Between 2009 and 2017, the narrative of justice in the Nithari case was defined by the relentless verdicts of the trial courts. Across multiple cases filed by the CBI, the Ghaziabad trial court convicted Surinder Koli in 13 cases, and sentenced him to death. Moninder Singh Pandher, the house owner, was convicted and sentenced to death in two cases.

The foundation of these convictions rested heavily on Koli's alleged confessional statement and the recovery of human remains from the drainage system behind House Number D-5, Sector 31, Noida. Another five years passed before the tide turned.

OCTOBER 2023: THE SCRUTINY OF ERROR

The appeal process brought the entire edifice of the investigation before the scrutiny of the Allahabad High Court. In a critical intervention in October 2023, the court began a systematic dissection of the prosecution's evidence, revealing flaws deemed fatal to the legal process.

The High Court declared the investigation botched and perfunctory. The court ruled:

Koli’s confession was involuntary: Koli’s key confession was inadmissible, having been extracted after prolonged, unauthorised police custody without adequate legal safeguards, thus violating fundamental constitutional rights.

Evidence was tainted: The recovery of skulls and bones from the open, public drain behind D-5 was deemed untenable under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act. The prosecution failed to prove that the recovery was made solely on the basis of Koli's confidential disclosure, destroying the chain of evidence.

No evidence against Pandher: The evidence against Pandher was found to be insufficient to connect him to the acts of murder or abduction.

With these findings, the Allahabad High Court overturned all death sentences and life terms, acquitting both Surendra Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher. Only one case remained.

THE FINAL JUDGEMENT: CURATIVE PETITION (2025)

The final legal chapter closed in November 2025. Facing the sole remaining conviction against Koli (the Rimpa Haldar case, upheld in 2011), the Supreme Court invoked its curative jurisdiction.

It ruled that since the identical evidence used in the 12 other cases had been definitively rejected as inadmissible, to maintain the conviction in the final case would constitute a “manifest miscarriage of justice.”

This final judgment led to the complete acquittal of Koli. The judicial record concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish the guilt of the accused “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Koli, once just a few hours away from the gallows, was ordered released based on the integrity of legal procedure overriding the gravity of suspicion.

WHO KILLED THE NITHARI VICTIMS?

An alternate theory suggests that the Nithari killings were not acts of an isolated perpetrator, but part of an organised criminal syndicate involved in illegal organ harvesting.

Forensic evidence, such as the surgical precision of dismemberment, missing torsos in recovered remains, and absence of blood or murder weapons at the primary crime scene, pointed to professional medical involvement in the narrative of rape and murder.

However, it was systematically ignored by the Uttar Pradesh Police and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), leading to sharp judicial criticism in the 2023 Allahabad High Court verdict.

The Allahabad High Court in 2023 condemned this failure vividly: “The possibility of organ trade being the cause of killings in Nithari, particularly when the resident of adjoining house i.e. House No. D-6, Sector-31, Noida, had been arrested earlier in a case of kidney scam has not been properly probeD.”

With Koli’s acquittal, the organ-trafficking theory remains the most plausible alternative, exemplifying systemic failures—bias against the marginalised, investigative shortcuts, and the inability to dismantle entrenched criminal networks.

A BOTCHED, PERFUNCTORY PROBE

The CBI ignored organ trafficking after taking over the probe in January 2007.

Its focus was locked on Koli’s confession, a semi-literate house help who became the sole scapegoat. To explain the dismembered bodies, it floated alternative motives– pornography, black magic– but ignored evidence of precision in post-mortem reports.

Courts later described this as investigators taking the easy course of framing Koli instead of probing the trafficking angle.

Almost 19 years after the case, key questions remain unanswered:

Who removed the torsos?

Why was Koli’s confession extracted after 90 days of custody, under allegations of torture?

Was the owner of D-6 interrogated properly?

If not Koli, who killed the missing children of Nithari residents?

Unfortunately, like the Arushi Talwar-Hemraj murder case, we may never know the answers.

- Ends