The mother of Nithari murders death row convict Surender Koli on Thursday maintained that her son was innocent and said Koli’s employer Moninder Singh Pandher was responsible for the killings. Kunti Devi met Koli at Meerut Jail and said afterwards to waiting newsmen: “My son is innocent.” Speaking to journalists outside the jail, she said Pandher was responsible for the killings and should be hanged before her son.
Narayan Singh Rawat, the village head, who took Kunti Devi to Meerut to meet her son, said, “Koli was taken into custody during which a conspiracy was hatched to implicate him and to spare Moninder Singh Pandher from the gallows. Now the villagers have realised Koli is innocent. He had been implicated under the influence of money and power. So they have decided to file a petition in Supreme Court to review the case under new provisions of open court for which the villagers are determined to collect money,” claimed Rawat.
Koli was convicted for the murder of a girl, Rimpa Halder, who went missing in Noida in December 2006. After a police investigation, she was found to have been murdered by Koli. During the probe, the skeletal remains of many other children were recovered from a drain adjacent to businessman Moninder Singh Pandher’s house in Nithari, an area in Noida, where Koli worked as domestic help.
Both Koli and Pandher were sentenced to death, but later the Allahabad High Court acquitted Pandher and upheld Koli’s death sentence. The Supreme Court also upheld the lower court’s judgment. On Thursday, Kunti Devi said the influential Pandher was spared and a poor innocent was made scapegoat. Koli was transferred from Dasna Jail to Meerut September 4. He was to be executed September 12 but the hanging was stayed till next Monday following a SC order.