The Netflix film “Sector 36,” directed by Aditya Nimbalkar and written by Bodhayan Roychaudhury, is loosely based on the 2006 Noida serial murders. Starring Vikrant Massey and featuring Deepak Dobriyal as Inspector Ram Charan Pandey, the film explores the horrific details of the Nithari killings.
Surendra Koli, the main accused in the case, was involved in 12 murders, with his co-accused, Moninder Singh Pandher. The case shocked the nation due to its disturbing details of sexual assault, brutal murder, and hints of possible cannibalism.
What is the Nithari Case?
The gruesome case emerged in December 2006 when the police discovered human skulls, skeletal remains and fragments of clothes stuffed in gunny bags in a drain behind bungalow number D-5 in Noida’s Sector 31, adjacent to Nithari village.
Further digging and searches of drains in the area around the house led to the recovery of more skeletal remains. Most of these remains belonged to poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area.
It was alleged that Surendra Koli, who was Pandher’s domestic help, would lure the children to the house, offering them sweets and chocolates, murder them, and have sexual intercourse with the corpses. He was also accused of cannibalism. He would throw the bones and other body parts into a ditch behind the house.
His employer, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, was co-accused of brutal murder and rape in the Nithari case. Koli and Pandher carried out the serial killings between 2005 and 2006.
Court rulings
On February 13, 2009, a special CBI court convicted Koli and Pandher and sentenced them to death for rape and murder of a 14-year-old. Following an appeal to the Allahabad High Court, Pandher was found not guilty, but Koli’s conviction and death sentence were confirmed.
Koli then took his case to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal in 2011 and later dismissed a review petition in 2014. However, in January 2015, the Allahabad High Court changed his death sentence to life imprisonment, citing a significant delay in handling his mercy petition.
In 2017, a special CBI court sentenced Pandher and Koli to death for the rape and murder of a woman, based on complaints from her father that had first alerted the police.
On October 16, 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in two, citing poor evidence, procedural problems, unlikely situations, and claims of coaching and torture. Pandher was released from prison on October 20, while Koli is still serving a life sentence.
Comments
0 comment