By IANS,
Ghaziabad : Ignoring threatening calls to abandon the cases, lawyer Khalid Khan forged on, fighting for justice for the poor Nithari families who had lost their children to bestial rapist-murderers. Thursday’s conviction by a court of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surendra Koli in one case has come as a vindication.
For advocate Khalid Khan it was a profession by chance and not choice.
Khan, a chartered accountant and a lawyer, started his legal career in 2005 to fight his personal property case and in next eight months he managed to get over 60 cases related to corruption by police and administrative officials.
“I was working as an accounts manager in a private company when a personal property case was filed in the court. It is then that I decided to fight the case myself,” Khan told IANS.
On the Nithari victims’ case, Khan said: “The families of Nithari victims approached me and I took up their cases to bring justice to the families who lost their loved ones.”
“I was handling all the 19 cases related to the murder of women and children by Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli. However, some families later under pressure changed the lawyer.”
Despite receiving several threatening phone calls to abandon the cases, Khan was determined to work on them.
“Many times I received threatening calls from fellow lawyers and some unknown person to leave the cases. But I am not afraid of anyone and I can fight cases against anyone,” said Khan, who is in his late 30s.
A special court Thursday held Pandher and Koli guilty of the murder and rape of Rimpa Haldar, one of the 19 young women and children from Nithari village in Noida area whose body parts were found in a drain behind Pandher’s bungalow in December 2006.