SC issues notice on pleas against acquittal of Nithari accused

SC has issued notice on appeals filed by the UP government and CBI against acquittal of accused in the Nithari killings case. A bench headed by justice BR Gavai directed the accused, who were earlier sentenced to death, to file their response on the appeals. Appearing on behalf of Centre, solicitor general Tushar Mehta argued that Surinder Koli, co-accused, was a serial killer who used to lure young girls and kill them. Mehta also described the killings as gruesome.

Mehta said there were allegations of cannibalism and the trial court had awarded death to Koli, but the same had been reversed by the Allahabad High Court. The killings in Nithari took place in December 2006 when skeletal remains of children and young women were recovered from a drain behind a house belonging to businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, also an accused, in the Nithari locality of Noida city in UP.