By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday upheld Nithari serial killer Surendra Koli’s death sentence and said “no mercy” can be shown to him for the horrifying and gruesome crime.
“The killings by appellant Surendra Koli are horrifying and barbaric. He used a definite methodology in committing these murders,” the court said.
The apex court bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra said that “in our opinion, this case clearly falls within the category of ‘rarest of rare’ case and no mercy can be shown to the appellant (Koli)”.
“In this case, there is no sentence other than the death sentence that you (Surendra Koli) deserve,” the court said, dismissing his appeal against the death penalty awarded by the Allahabad High Court for killing Rimpa Haldar, 14.
While confirming Koli’s death sentence, the apex court, however, did not say anything about employer Moninder Singh Pandher, who was also awarded the death sentence by the trial court but was acquitted by the high court.
The court said: “For two years, murders were going on in your house. Except for 15 days when you were away to Australia, to say that you were not aware of what was going in your house, it is difficult to believe.”
The court said that any confirmation of the acquittal of Pandher in Rimpa Haldar case would have repercussions on other Nithari cases where he is a co-accused with Koli.
Dismissing Koli’s plea, the court said: “He would see small girls passing by the house (of his employer in D5, Noida sector 31) and taking advantage of their weakness, lure then inside the house…and there he would strangulate them and after killing them he tried to have sex with the body and would then cut off their body parts and eat them (after cooking).”
“Some parts of the body were disposed of by throwing them in the passage gallery and the drain besides the house. The house had become a virtual slaughter house where innocent children were regularly butchered,” the court said.
The disposed material recovered by police included clothes and slippers of the victims.
The apex court concurred with the high court verdict upholding the death sentence awarded to Koli in the Haldar case by the trial court. Besides this case, Koli is also facing trial in 16 other cases linked to Nithari killings.
Holding that the confession made by Koli before magistrate was in order and suffered from no infirmity, the court said that in his confessional statement Koli gave a “graphic description” of the murders he committed.
“We see no reason to interfere with the high court verdict holding Koli guilty of murdering Rimpa,” the order said.
“We entirely agree with the findings, conclusion and sentence of the high court so far as accused Surendra Koli is concerned,” the apex court order said.
Appearing for the Central Bureau of Investigation, Additional Solicitor General Vivek Tankha told the court: “He (Koli) was very careful in the choice of his victims. It was a very pre-mediated, dastardly and cowardly act.”
The Nithari killings pertain to the horrific discovery in December 2006 of human body parts in a drain behind Pandher’s bungalow. The remains were of the 19 young women and children from Nithari village allegedly raped and killed by Koli in the bungalow.
Koli was given the fourth death sentence in the serial killings Dec 22 last year.
Earlier during the hearing, court-appointed lawyer Sushil Balwada, appearing for Koli, told the court that there were many inconsistencies in the prosecution case and the conviction was based only on circumstantial evidence.
The court noted that Koli’s conviction did not rest just on the confessional statement but was backed by corroborative evidence.
The judges said that the corroborative evidence included a knife and the victim’s clothes recovered by police which were identified by the victim’s family members.
The DNA sample of victim Rimpa recovered from her body parts seized from the spot matched with that of her parents and brother. The DNA test was conducted by a Hyderabad-based laboratory.
The body parts of victims were recovered in the presence of doctors of who later reconstructed them.
The court said that two girls Purnima and Pratibha said that Koli tired to allure them also but they were lucky that they did not fall for the bait.
“This was their (Purnima and Pratibha) sheer good luck, for if they would have entered the house then they might have met the same fate. Their evidence indicates the modus operandi of the appellant (Koli),” the court said.