New Delhi(IANS) : A key witness in the case of killings of children and young women at Nithari was booked for perjury Saturday by a Ghaziabad court for retracting his testimony against prime accused Moninder Singh Pandher.
Special Judge Rama Jain found prima facie perjury charges against Nandlal, whose 22-year-old daughter Payal was one of the 20-odd victims of the serial rape and killings in the village on the outskirts of New Delhi. He has been asked to appear before Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ghaziabad, on Dec 6.
Nandlal had earlier done a turn around when he told a designated court that he had not seen Noida-based businessman Pandher helping police recover a murder weapon from the bushes near his house.
This went against his July 6 deposition in court, when he had said: “I was present when the police had first quizzed Pandher and he had taken the police to an area beside his house from where the big knife (aari) was recovered by the police.”
He had also denied that he ever saw Pandher’s manager S.K Sharma bribing Deputy Superintendent of Police Dinesh Yadav.
However, in his earlier statement he had asserted that he saw Sharma giving a wad of currency notes of Rs.500 denomination to Yadav.
On the basis of his earlier statements, the court had framed charges of rape and murder against Pandher and had also directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to register a corruption case against Yadav.