In October 2024, I found myself standing before the infamous D5 bungalow in Noida’s Nithari village, now shrouded in creeping vines. The dense foliage had covered the abandoned building in a swathe of green, as if to hide it from humanity.

Like a tombstone, the bungalow stood there as a remnant of one of the most gruesome and morbid tales of serial murders that had shaken the country.

Everyone in this urban village knows where D5 is and what it stands for. Anyone who works or lives there can point you to it in hushed voices. In a lane of posh and pristine Noida bungalows, the abandoned building is the easiest house to find.

Eighteen years ago, the body parts of 19 women and children were dug up from an open space behind the house and a drain in front of it, to the nation’s collective gasp and horror.

Even now, the drain remains clogged with trash – plastic, old slippers, and scraps of fabric. As I stood there, staring at the waste and ruin, I was transported back to the time when evidence of these horrifying murders was scooped out from it – a story I had only heard of or seen on the news.

That was on 29 December 2006. 

But, why revisit a case as gruesome and haunting as the Nithari murders now? 

The media has long moved on, the courtroom battles have quieted, and yet the unease lingers that the story is incomplete and might have been crafted for convenience and closure.

I still remember the news flashes from the time, showing the house and people gathered around it as bags of body parts were recovered. As a pre-teen, I was shaken by this serial murder case and the narrative of its ‘villains’ taking shape across news channels.

Media reports showed families holding photos of their missing family members, women and children, demanding they be found and justice delivered.

Moninder Singh Pandher, the owner of the bungalow, and Surendra Koli, his domestic worker, were arrested in connection with the murders. For most of the ensuing decade, they would remain incarcerated, waiting to be hanged.

But even before the courts could read out their punishment, they – primarily Koli – had already been branded murderers who raped and killed women and children in what the media called the “house of horrors.”

As their cases wound their way through the Byzantine judicial system, the allegations against the two began to fall apart. Were they framed from the start? Did the prosecution botch up the case? Had the two been scapegoated?

By October 2023, Koli had been acquitted by the high court in 12 out of the 13 murder cases and Pandher in the two against him. But for the public, Koli, languishing in jail on death row, had already been declared the “cannibal” and the “necrophiliac.”

The media had played an important role in creating this convenient villain, a perception still etched in public memory.

The acquittals prompted some media outlets with their sensational takes to stir up public outrage yet again. Nearly a year after Koli and Pandher were acquitted in the cases against them, NDTV published two videos. One was titled, “Nithari’s ‘House of Horrors’: Who is Moninder Singh Pandher?” It talked about the Nithari killings and how a St Stephen’s history graduate, Pandher’s “world came crashing down” after the case came to light.

The other video was titled “The Nithari ‘Monster’: Surinder Koli’s Stories Of Rape, Mutilation & Cannibalism.” The voiceover began: “Surendra Koli, a name that evokes evil and extreme brutality…”

While the video said that Pandher was let off due to a “lack of evidence” against him, it did not explain why Koli’s death sentences were reversed by the Allahabad High Court in all but one case. Koli was still remembered as the “monster” of Nithari who lured women and children to D5, a “black hole” they vanished into.

We at The Reporters’ Collective were disturbed. We began reading the records and speaking to several people in Nithari who were witnesses to the goings-on. 

So if Koli and Pandher had not killed the victims they stood accused of murdering, who had? We did not review this case for an answer to this rather legitimate question. We wanted to know how it took 18 years for the ‘system’ to decide that Koli was not responsible for 12 of the 13 murders he was accused of originally and Pandher of none. Why, for so long, had everyone that constitutes the ‘system’ wanted Koli hanged? 

Reading thousands of pages of records made us realise we were not investigating Koli. Our job was to focus on those who investigated, prosecuted, and passed judgment on Koli. We were reviewing where we had collectively forgotten the idea of justice – the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. 

To do this, we chose to eschew the easy path of ‘humanising’ Koli. We did not go about redrawing a more accurate portrait of the accused. We attempted to draw a more accurate picture of how the investigation, the court cases, and the incarceration unfolded on documents.

Over the next two days, we will publish the series. I seek your indulgence. We have not used the standard methods of storytelling to lure you in. The story is burdened with the need to unpack 18 years of evidence production in the courts of India. We have not tried to prejudice you against or in favour of the accused.

To us, the story’s findings convict the system of a grave failure. It shows, regardless of whether Koli is guilty or not, how we all are. Of having collectively given up on justice. 

A Dalit worker scapegoated for our closure.

India’s criminal justice system disproportionately punishes marginalised groups like Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis. Caste, religious biases, and economic disadvantages prevent them from accessing legal aid, making them vulnerable to injustices.

A study using prison data from 1998 to 2014 exposed the “over-representation” of minorities in prisons. While Muslims make up 14% of India’s population, they accounted for 21% of those incarcerated. Similarly, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), who represent 16.6% and 8.6% of the population, made up 22% and 13.5% of prisoners, respectively. These figures highlight how discrimination and socio-economic inequality fuel injustice. 

In October 2024, we spoke to numerous residents of Nithari village. Many suspected the police were complicit in the killings. They had repeatedly dismissed missing person complaints, even as a doctor, who lived right next to Pandher’s house, was implicated in an organ trade racket.

“Police used to stick around Pandher and the doctor’s house. There is no way they did not know. How can so many murders happen without their knowledge?” asked a 50-year-old Nithari resident who also lived there during the time the killings transpired.

“The doctor did all of this, good he was caught,” said another woman, confusing Pandher with the doctor. She seemed to remember a doctor as the person behind the murders. The police did not care, she also maintained.

“They let go of a domestic worker who worked in D5. The police helped the person disappear without investigating the matter thoroughly. We feel the person knew the truth,” said another resident.

If we go by the accounts of locals who were present during the events and closely observed the authorities’ conduct, the police appear not merely negligent but potentially complicit. 

As journalists, our responsibility is to separate hearsay from verified facts.

Restricted by our scarce resources, we limited our work to not going after ‘new’ evidence but poring over existing records. What we found alarmed us!

We understand that holding your attention amid dense facts and minimal drama is a challenge, but to uncover the truth, we urge you to stay with us in the next piece. Starting tomorrow, we will unravel the Nithari serial murder case, exposing the fractures in our broken criminal justice system.