Nithari killings case: Special court awards death penalty to Pandher, Koli

A CBI special court here on Friday awarded death sentence to Noida businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic servant Surendra Koli in connection with one of the 16 murder cases infamous as the Nithari killings.

The sentence was passed by the court in the case of rape and murder of a 25-year old maid servant. This was ninth among the 16 cases in which Koli was convicted.

This was also the third case in which both Pandher and Koli were convicted by the court on Thursday.

"Both Koli and Pandher have been awarded death sentence by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad," CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.

The CBI had told the court that the victim was a domestic help who went missing on October 12, 2006.

Her identification was done through her clothes found from the human remains found from the area behind Pandher's house in Nithari village in Sector 31, Noida, the agency had said.

The Nithari killings surfaced during when skeletal remains of 16 persons, mostly children, were discovered from the backyard of Pandher's house by the local police.