New Delhi: With his lawyers protecting him and the media shouting questions at him, Surendra Koli walked out of prison late on Wednesday, wearing a mask and keeping his gaze low, before stepping into a waiting vehicle, a free man after almost two decades.
Koli, once on death row in connection with the gruesome 2005-2006 Nithari murders, declined to speak with journalists as he stepped out of prison a day after the Supreme Court acquitted him of the final pending rape and murder case against him.
The bench of Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, and Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath directed that he be “released forthwith”, saying that despite prolonged investigation, the identity of the actual perpetrator has not been established in a manner that meets legal standards.
Jail officials described Koli as quiet and calm, saying he mostly kept to himself and didn’t react much even after hearing Monday’s Supreme Court verdict, which set him free.
An inmate released on parole minutes before Koli referred to him as ‘doctor sahab Koli‘, without offering any explanation.
With this, Koli, once condemned to death, walked free for the first time since his arrest in December 2006.
From death row to acquittal
Koli, a domestic worker employed by businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, was accused of abducting, raping and murdering several children from the Nithari locality in Noida. The killings came to light in December 2006 after skeletal remains of at least eight victims were discovered in a drain behind Pandher’s bungalow.
Both men were charged in multiple cases based on similar evidence. Over the years, the Allahabad High Court acquitted them in 12 of these, citing inconsistencies in the investigation, unreliable confessions and procedural lapses.
In July, the Supreme Court upheld those acquittals, observing that the evidence used against Koli and Pandher “did not withstand judicial scrutiny”.
Koli’s latest curative petition concerned the only case in which his conviction and death sentence had still stood.
In its judgment, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the case crossed the “exacting threshold” for curative intervention.
It noted that Koli’s confession was legally flawed and the alleged recoveries “did not satisfy statutory preconditions.” The bench remarked that when proof fails, “the only lawful outcome is to set aside the conviction even in a case involving horrific crimes”.
Also Read: Sentenced to death by three courts. Nithari killings convict Surendra Koli, now free
‘Fragility of system’
Koli’s lawyer Payoshi Roy described the verdict as “a moment of relief after a 19-year struggle” but also a mirror to the “dark and deep flaws in the Indian criminal justice system”.
“This judgment exposes the fragility of our system and the manner in which the death sentence works in India,” she told ThePrint.
“This is a case that the Supreme Court looked at in appeal and in review twice, upholding the death sentence each time. Today, the same court, on the same evidence, has admitted its own error in not acquitting him earlier,” she added.
Koli has been represented by senior advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary, along with advocates Payoshi Roy and Siddhartha Sharma, since 2014.
Roy said that while the verdict vindicates years of effort, it cannot undo the devastation Koli’s family has endured.
“Both he and his family have been destroyed entirely, with the media playing a big role in this. In the initial years, he was called everything from a rapist to a cannibal to the ‘darinda of Noida’,” she said.
“His family lost their jobs; they are poor, marginalised people who had to distance themselves from the ‘cannibal of Nithari’ tag just to survive,” she added.
Roy told ThePrint that despite the relief, “it is not a story with a happy ending. There is a deep hopelessness in all of them. He did his own cross-examinations, fought his own case for this moment.”
Roy also criticised the investigative process, calling it a “case built on fabrication”.
“This is not a case where the evidence didn’t add up; they knew they were going after the wrong guy,” she said, noting that Koli was kept in custody for 60 days before his confession was taken.
“This moment requires deep thinking and introspection from the court and the investigating agencies as to how the trademark pattern repeats itself again and again — the pattern being there’s an offense and the sensationalism of the gory details and the cannibalism precisely because it is so offensive to the senses and to numb judicial scrutiny. It’s about making the marginalised a scapegoat to protect more powerful persons.”
Koli’s release marks the end of one of India’s most disturbing criminal sagas, a case that gripped public imagination with its horror and left a deep scar on the collective conscience.
For now, Koli leaves behind 19 years of confinement and a trail of troubling questions about justice, investigation and the long shadows of public outrage.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)