Nithari Killings: Koli Sentenced to Death Again

Source: Indlaw

A special CBI court at Ghaziabad awarded death penalty to Surender Koli in the Deepali rape and murder case. 

This was his fourth death sentence in as many cases out of the 19 serial Nithari killings which rocked the nation in 2006. 

Earlier, special CBI Judge A K Singh pronounced Koli guilty in the case of rape and murder of 12-year-old Deepali. Koli, the domestic help of Moninder Singh Pandher who was not proceeded against in this case for want of evidence, has already been awarded death sentence by the special court in three of 16 cases filed in connection with the rape and murder of children and a young woman at Nithari in the district. 

Like in other cases, body parts of Deepali were also found in a drain behind Pandher’s bungalow in Nithari in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. 

In the first conviction in the series of horrific crimes, Koli and Pandher were found guilty and sentenced to death in the rape and murder of 14 year-old Rimpa Haldar on February 13, 2009. However, Pandher was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court on September 11. 

Koli was also awarded death sentence for rape and murder of eight-year-old Aarti last year and of nine-year-old Rachna this year. 

Deepali’s case is the fourth of the 16 cases filed by the CBI in connection with the rape and murder of children and a young woman whose skeletal remains were found in Nithari in 2006. 

Of the total 19 cases, CBI filed charge sheets in 16 cases, while the remaining three cases were closed without trial due to lack of evidence.