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The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on a plea challenging the Allahabad High Court's acquittal of Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli, accused in the 2005-06 Noida Nithari killings.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Satish Chandra Sharma and Sandeep Mehta sought responses from the Uttar Pradesh government and others on an appeal filed by Pappu Lal, the father of one of the victim girls. In October last year, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Pandher and his domestic helper Surendra Koli in some of the cases concerning the Nithari killings and overturned the death penalty imposed on them by the trial court. It had acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in 2 cases, where they were earlier held guilty for murder and awarded the death penalty by the trial court in these cases. The CBI had registered 16 cases against Koli and Pandher over the rape and killing of girls that had shocked the nation. The case came to public attention in December 2006 when skeletons were discovered in a drain near a house in Nithari village, Noida. Pandher was the owner of the house and Koli was his domestic help. Koli was made an accused in all of the cases on various charges, including murder, abduction, rape, and the destruction of evidence. However, Pandher was named in six of them. Koli was convicted of committing multiple rapes and murders of various girls and was sentenced to death in more than 10 cases. (ANI)
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