This is part 3 of the series. Read parts 1 and 2 here.
New Delhi: Bougainvillaea crawl over the front of the house, its pink blossoms spilling across cracked walls. Behind it, trees have grown dense, forming a quiet green canopy that swallows what remains underneath.
To a passerby, it may seem like any other forgotten home in NCR—abandoned, reclaimed by time and nature.
But this is D-5 in Nithari, the address that became known as Noida’s ‘house of horrors’ following the arrests of its owner Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help, Surendra Koli, for serial killings that made headlines nearly two decades ago.
The house that was
A duplex, D-5 had its main entry gate on one side of the plot, with an open driveway leading to a staff room towards the backend. Its ground floor was divided into a drawing room, three bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen and washrooms. And the backyard featured a spiral iron staircase that led directly to the staff room on the first floor.
Pandher bought this property in February 2004, and hired Koli in July the same year.
The first disappearance of a child, according to court records, was registered in February 2005. But documents show that complaints of missing children had begun in 2004. No action was taken at the time, and police paid little attention to the discovery of a human hand, found by children playing in an enclosed space between D-5 and its adjacent property D-6.
It was only in 2006, when police—rebuked by courts—registered the first FIR on a complaint by the family of a missing 20-year-old woman. As Pandher and Koli were interrogated, police found 15 skulls, clothes and other belongings from a drain outside the house.
More human remains were unearthed from multiple other spots in the weeks after—the ground behind D-5 and the long-vacated D-6, and the Jal Board residential quarters, just metres from the houses.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in all, registered 19 cases against Pandher and Koli. But it filed closure reports in three, citing lack of evidence.
By 2023, Pandher was acquitted in all the cases, and Koli in three by a trial court, and 12 by the Allahabad high court. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed his lone conviction in the remaining case, allowing him to walk out of jail a free man.
Noida boom reaches Nithari
Two decades on, D-5 is buried under foliage. D-6 belongs to a doctor who left the property long back. And D-4, till date, is occupied by a lawyer.
The rest of Nithari, too, has tried to move on. The neighbourhood hums with life—there are shops, parked cars and children playing on the streets.
Real estate has made its presence felt; glass façades and new apartments have begun to rise where barren lands once stood. The village is growing, changing, and limping towards urbanisation like the rest of Noida.
Behind the lane where D-5 still stands, a shopkeeper at a grocery store said his family has been living in Nithari since the village had just a few bungalows. “Now, the area has grown. People have bought properties. It has taken time, but development did come here,” he said.
But reminders of the unsolved killings remain.
The 26-year-old shopkeeper told ThePrint his family’s rented house was inhabited by the family of a minor girl who went missing. After that, the family moved away and eventually left the city.
Across the D-5 street, another 10-year-old girl’s family used to run a laundry shop. The girl was among those reported missing between 2005 and 2006. Later, her clothes and bones were flushed out of the drain.
The family shifted blocks away. “We lived here before Pandher bought the house. This gate is now locked because it has developed into a society. Earlier, there was nothing on this side,” the girl’s mother, a homemaker, said.
Also Read: The great Nithari botch-up: How the probe tied itself up in knots
An eye on D-5
As the village concretises, brokers have been eyeing the ‘Nithari house’ for sale. The land, approximately 250 square metres in area, would be valued at Rs 3.5 crore, according to an estimate by Mukul Chaudhary, a local real estate agent.
Having been in business for more than a decade in Noida, Chaudhary told ThePrint he would gladly buy D-5 if the property was up for sale.
“The property has been “attached” by a court. If it comes out of the attachment and is up for sale, we would try to acquire the property immediately,” Chaudhary said, adding, “Who wouldn’t want to acquire a property right at the main road of the colony.”
As with most of NCR, real estate prices in Sector 31, where Nithari is located, have skyrocketed in recent years, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.
“The demand for real estate and land in Sector 31 has gone leaps and bounds in the last few years as affordable land or houses are hardly available in other developed parts of Noida such as sectors 16 or 20,” Chaudhary said.
He said a plot measuring 450 sqm in Nithari would cost around Rs 5.5 crore, and a house built on it would add another Rs 10 crore to the price. The location of the property, if placed around a key road, would increase the cost to Rs 25 crore, he said.
Land plots in Noida and Greater Noida are sold under leasehold agreements under which owners have the right to use the plot for 99 years. These agreements are generally extendable, but not legally binding.
This has tempered the increase in real estate prices in Noida over the last few decades. And Nithari is no exception.
Metres from D-5, Jitendra Tiwary runs a real estate agency that offers a range of services, including rental, consultancy and brokerage services.
Like Chaudhary, Tiwary believes nothing matters except buyers’ demand. “Buyers are the king. It is their demand and supply that ultimately fuels the market,” he said.
People of Nithari have forgotten the episode of the killings of children, at least when they are selling their land plots, Tiwari reckoned, explaining that landlords often compare their properties’ valuations with those located in other developed sectors of the city.
“Nithari killings must be alive in the lives and memories of the families of the victims and court case files. But, on the ground, the village had long moved on. The real estate market and valuations are proof of that,” he told ThePrint.
Nithari’s identity, he conceded, may have been intertwined with that of D-5, but that doesn’t mean the village won’t develop.
“Earlier, there were no hospitals in the village. Now, there are hospitals even for child care. A building is under construction to provide residential accommodation to doctors and hospital staff. The length of the building will tell you how far Nithari has come from what it would have been 20 years ago,” he said.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
Also Read: In Noida’s Nithari, Koli’s acquittal reopens old wounds & theories. ‘It was organ trading’