Nithari accused walks free, questions remain

THE Supreme Court’s decision to acquit Surendra Koli, the main accused in the 2006 Nithari killings, marks the end of one of the country’s most horrifying and controversial criminal cases. Nearly two decades after the discovery of human remains in a Noida house shocked the nation, the SC has upheld the Allahabad High Court’s 2023 finding that the prosecution failed to prove guilt “beyond reasonable doubt.” The high court had acquitted both Koli and co-accused Moninder Singh Pandher in multiple cases, overturning the death sentences handed down by the trial court in 2010. Koli now walks free after years on death row.

This verdict is a sobering reminder of the frailties that can afflict our criminal justice system — from hasty investigations and media trials to questionable confessions and overreliance on circumstantial evidence. While the Nithari case had long been portrayed as the epitome of human depravity, justice does not rest on conjecture or public outrage. As this grim saga concludes, the question that haunted Nithari still lingers — who killed those children? The acquittals have left a void that no judgment can fill. The families of the victims continue to grapple with pain and disbelief, denied both closure and answers. But the rule of law demands proof, not presumption, even when outcomes are uncomfortable.

The Nithari investigation should now be examined for its failures — forensic, procedural and ethical. Those lapses not only prolonged injustice but also eroded faith in the institutions meant to deliver it. This verdict frees a man, but it also indicts a system that faltered at every stage. The least that can be done is to learn from this tragic saga so that horror does not repeat itself and justice does not arrive two decades too late.