A chilling sense of déjà vu has returned to the village of Nithari after India’s Supreme Court overturned the final conviction of Surinder Koli, the domestic aide once at the center of one of the country’s most horrifying serial murder cases. The decision, reported by The Independent UK, has devastated families who have spent nearly two decades seeking justice for their missing children.
House number D5 — an abandoned bungalow swallowed by vines and wedged between modern buildings — still stands as a silent witness to the nightmare that unravelled in the mid-2000s. Between 2005 and 2006, children and young women began disappearing from this neighbourhood on the outskirts of Delhi. As disappearances mounted to 19, panic spread. Residents refused to leave home after noon, and families frantically begged police to act. Their fears were confirmed in 2006 when mutilated remains started emerging from drains and sewers surrounding the property of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, the owner of D5.
Following a sweeping investigation, a special court sentenced Pandher and Koli to death in 2009. Koli was accused of murder, rape and abduction, while Pandher faced accusations linked to trafficking. Nineteen cases were eventually filed, and by 2011 Koli had received an additional death sentence for the killing of a 15-year-old girl. But years later, the legal edifice began to crumble. By 2023, Pandher had been acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and Koli was cleared in all but one case. On 11 November, the Supreme Court ruled that upholding a single conviction based on evidence already dismissed in 12 other cases would be unjust, ordering his release.
The Independent UK noted that the ruling has intensified anger among the victims’ families, who say the failures lie squarely with the police. Courts have repeatedly criticised investigators for “gross negligence,” botched evidence collection and reliance on questionable confessions. A federal inquiry even raised the possibility of an organ trade motive. The remains recovered — often stuffed in plastic bags and identified only by clothing or small accessories — revealed brutal dismemberment described by doctors as “butcher-like.”
For parents like Jhabbu Lal, who lost his 10-year-old daughter, the latest court decision has shattered whatever hope remained. He told The Independent UK that he no longer believes justice is possible. His daughter’s clothes and slippers were found in the infamous D5 compound; DNA analysis confirmed her death. “We have lost all hope,” he said. “There is no hope for justice from anyone but God.” Other locals recall a time when fear ruled daily life, when women and children were afraid to leave their homes and rumours of abductions and killings spread like wildfire.
Pandher spent 14 years in prison before his acquittal, but has never returned to the bungalow that once bore his name. Nithari itself has changed dramatically — now a bustling suburb with gated societies and broad, well-lit streets. Only D5 remains untouched, a grim reminder of what residents once endured. Yet for families who lost their children, the transformation means little. They say what mattered most was justice, and that too, they feel, has slipped away.
Many now direct their anger at the authorities who, they believe, failed them from the start. Several recount how police dismissed missing children reports, forcing families to rely on media attention to keep their cases alive. “Authorities listen only to those who have money,” Lal said. “We don’t have any rights. They own the system.”
As Koli walks free after nearly twenty years behind bars, unanswered questions continue to torment the families of Nithari. With no other suspects publicly identified and investigations widely criticised as flawed, residents fear the truth behind the village’s darkest chapter may never fully emerge.
