Nithari serial killing probe ‘botched up’: court, pulling up CBI

New Delhi: The Allahabad High Court heavily criticised the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Noida Police for the ‘botched’ handling of controversial Nithari case involving serial killing of children in Noida.

The murder and dismemberment of 19 children and one woman made shock headlines across the nation 17 years ago.

Calling the handling of case as “nothing short of betrayal of public trust," the court said that the prosecution failed to prove guilt alongside not exploring key angles including potential involvement of ‘organised organ trade’.

The court’s critical observations comes against the backdrop of today’s clearing of main accused Surinder Koli of all charges in 12 cases, according to NDTV.

Moninder Singh Pandher , the co-accused and Koli’s employer, was freed from two cases alongside canceling their death sentences.

The detailed order said that the investigation is ‘botched up’ and ‘brazenly violated’ the basic norms in handling the case.

The court pointed out that the manner of arrest, recovery of evidence and recording of confession were also ‘casual’ and ‘perfunctory’.

‘It appears to us that the investigation opted for the easy course of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonizing him, without taking due care of probing more serious aspects of possible involvement of organized activity of organ trading,’ the order reportedly said.

‘The manner in which confession is recorded after 60 days of police remand without any medical examination of accused; providing of legal aid; overlooking specific allegation of torture in the confession itself; failure to comply with the requirement of Section 164 CrPC is shocking to say the least,’ the court added.

The case was revolving around the confessions made by Pandher’s domestic help Koli.

Surindar Koli , investigators claimed, confessed to murder, rape of dead bodies and consumption of human flesh.

The two men were arrested in 2006 after the recovery of body parts from a drain near the house in Noida where the murders reportedly had taken place.

In the months before body remains were found, several children had reportedly gone missing from the area.

At end of the trail Koli was handed five death sentences in five different cases.

The Supreme Court upheld the death penalty while putting on hold the execution for a month in 2014.

Back then President Pranab Mukharjee rejected Koli’s mercy petition when the matter came up before him.

Citing ‘inordinate delay’ in deciding Koli’s mercy petition, the Allahabad High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment in the following year.

Pandher is currently in a Noida jail, and Koli is in a jail in Ghaziabad, according to the report.