Nithari killings case: Surendra Koli ‘freed’ after long trial in Nithari murders, social media is in a frenzy

Nithari case news: The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed the conviction of Surendra Koli, an accused in the rape and murder of a teenage girl in the Nithari serial murder case. A bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Vikram Nath allowed Koli’s curative petition and quashed his conviction and ordered that he be released if he is not arrested in any other case.

The Nithari murder case came to light on December 29, 2006, when the skeletons of eight children were found in a drain behind the house of Noida businessman Maninder Singh Pandher. Koli worked at Pandher’s house at the time. Excavation of the house revealed more skeletons, most of them of poor children and young women from the area.

Pandher and Koli were arrested the same month. They were accused of kidnapping, raping, mutilating and using children and women as food. Koli was accused of killing teenage girls and dismembering their bodies and dumping them in a drain.

On October 16, 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in 2 cases. Earlier, a special CBI court in Ghaziabad had awarded them death sentences in rape, murder and destruction of evidence cases.

Pandher was accused in six cases, out of which he was acquitted by the then trial court in three cases and the High Court in one case. In addition, the police had registered FIRs in 19 cases against Koli and Pandher. Koli was convicted by a special CBI court in the death case of a 14-year-old girl.

On appeal, the Allahabad High Court upheld Koli’s death sentence but acquitted Pandher. Koli later appealed to the Supreme Court, which was dismissed in 2011, and his review petition was also dismissed.

In January 2015, the Allahabad High Court commuted Koli’s death sentence to life imprisonment, citing “cruel delay in the petition”. Through this case, Koli was finally acquitted after a long trial in the Nithari murder case.

In UP’s Noida, mother of a deceased says, “…Moninder (Moninder Singh Pandher) and Surendra (Surendra Koli) killed so many children. But the case is not being done anything about…Who is guilty now? Was there a ghost in that house which killed all children? They used to kill children and indulge in organ trafficking. Now they say that they are innocent. Law is letting them go; God won’t…” (11.11.2025) Told to ANI news agency .