‘Who killed our children?’ It’s a cry the State cannot ignore. The two judge-bench of the Allahabad High Court (HC) that acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher and his help Surinder Koli in two of the 2006 Nithari murder cases on Monday, said the investigation was “botched up” and that “basic norms of collecting evidence have been brazenly violated”. Pandher is now set to be a free man — he has already been cleared in four other cases. The court said, “The casual and perfunctory manner in which important aspects of arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with is most disheartening, to say the least.” There were at least 19 persons, most of them children from poor families, who were murdered during 2005-06. The Uttar Pradesh police and CBI investigated the cases. Koli was charged with abduction, rape and murder in 16 cases (he confessed) while Pandher was charged in one case and was a co-accused in five other cases. Lower courts convicted them. The skeletal remains of eight children were recovered from a drain behind Pandher’s house. The HC said the prosecution kept changing its stance on the murders and recoveries and the case rested on a confession statement from Koli. The court found infirmities with the confession.
Nithari is a story that keeps repeating, of police investigations lacking rigour, understanding of due process, and commitment to justice, and failing to pass judicial scrutiny. The process to secure justice, with trials extending for years, itself becomes a punishment for those close to the dead. Then to be told that the prosecution failed them tests people’s trust in the criminal justice system. We have been here so many times. This scandalous state cannot continue.
