Pandher acquitted in Nithari killing

LUCKNOW - The Allahabad High Court Friday acquitted Noida businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, a key accused in the sensational Nithari killings, of the rape and murder of a teenage girl while upholding the guilty verdict of his domestic help Surinder Koli.

The high court passed the order in an appeal against a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) trial court that had awarded death to Pandher and Koli in the rape and murder of 14-year-old Rima 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.