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The 2006 Noida serial murder investigation began in December 2006 when the skulls and bones of a number of missing children were discovered in the village of Nithari on the outskirts of Noida City [1], a planned industrial township in Uttar Pradesh near New Delhi. A rich and politically connected Punjabi businessman, Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant and aide Surender Koli, had been apprehended on the suspicion of murder of a call girl, by the Delhi Police on December 26, 2007. A case has been registered against the two under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including rape, murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy.[2]
[edit] Events leading to investigation
The anxious and worried parents of the children who had went missing in the last two years rushed to the Nithari village as word spread that the skeletal remains of eight children had been found in a sewer behind the house of a factory owner.[3] Surender alias Satish later confessed killing six children and the 20 year-old Payal after having sexually assaulted them.
The residents alleged that the police were corrupt and involved with the rich people. Demands were put across for an independent probe into the matter. One of the residents even claimed that the police were claiming credit for discovering the bodies when it was the residents who dug them up. They also put forward a possibility of an organ trade scandal. The police denied having found fifteen bodies. They reiterated that they had discovered skulls, bones and other body parts and said that they were unable to give a figure for the number of victims. The victims' identities and number could only be established with DNA tests.[3] The police then sealed the house and did not allow mediapersons anywhere near the scene of crime.
The Central government tried to ascertain the facts behind the discovery of the skeletal remains of children and whether it had "inter-state ramifications. Law and order is a state's subject but the Home ministry asked for details about the magnitude of the crime.[4]
Pandher and his servant Surender Koli have been charged with kidnapping, raping and then murdering the children before dismembering their bodies and disposing of them in the drains behind Pandher's house. The police latched onto Surinder when they traced a cellphone call originating from one of the victim's (Payal's) cellphone. The Nithari police found Body parts of some twenty-two victims, but more than 38 children are reported to have gone missing from Nithari in the last one year [1]. The Nithari Murders Case catalysed and revived police and media attention to similar cases of large incidences of missing children from other parts of Uttar Pradesh and other places in India. It has been found that more than 132 children are missing from the city of Kanpur, with the police not having any information about them[2]
The Nithari victims are mostly children of migrant labourers from Bihar and West Bengal, and the victim's families are incensed that police attention to the disappearances of the children was insufficient mainly because the victims and their families were migrants, poor and non-voters. One exception was Payal, a call girl; Pandher was her regular client. Many parents of missing children have alleged that the police did not take action and even refused to register their police complaints (or FIRs) when they had reported their children missing[3]. As a result of public outrage and media pressure, the Uttar Pradesh government suspended two S.P.s (Superintendents of Police) and six constables who had been operating the Nithari Police Station over the last three to four years during the time of the murders[4]
As the police has investigated the story they have started suspecting organ trade involvement as well, principally as the remains did not include the torsos. However Pandher and Koli denied the allegations of the involvement of organ trade. Later, Koli is alleged to have confessed to the police that he consumed body parts of a number of the victims after killing them. This could be an alternative explanation to the missing torsos. An advanced narco-analysis was conducted on both of them in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to verify their claims.
At a press conference held on 5 January, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, after initially resisting, finally agreed with Governor T.V. Rajeshwar's sugestion that the case be handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), a demand made by most prominent political parties. Yadav also announced at the same press conference that the state would provide plots of lands to the families of the victims. Soon after taking over the probe, C.B.I. search teams conducted a more systematic search of Pandher's property and the sewers around it, finding three more skulls and also some of the missing torsos.
[edit] References
- ^ Sinha, Varun. "'We first fished out remains from drain'", Indian Express, 2006-12-29. Retrieved on February 27, 2007.
- ^ "Noida serial killing accused given 2 days' custody", Rediff News, 2006-12-30. Retrieved on February 27, 2007.
- ^ a b Singh, Onkar. "Noida: Parents of missing children anxious", Rediff News, 2006-12-29. Retrieved on February 27, 2007.
- ^ "'Do skeleton recoveries have inter-state ramifications?'", Rediff News, 2006-12-29. Retrieved on February 27, 2007.
