On December 29, 2006, the quiet village of Nithari woke up to a nightmare. What started as a search for a missing girl, Payal, led to the horrifying discovery of human remains near a bungalow in Noida. As the nation watched in shock, the Nithari killings unraveled—exposing one of the most gruesome serial crimes in India. In this special Crime Beat podcast series, join Seena Antony as she delves deep into the chilling details, the investigations, and the unanswered questions that still haunt the case.

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Who killed those children?
After the Supreme Court acquitted Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher on July 31, 2025, this is the most pressing question surrounding the Nithari massacre. If not Koli and Pandher, then who is behind the murder of 19 innocent lives?

How did the remains of missing children and women end up in the compound of Pandher’s bungalow and in the nearby canal? Countless unanswered questions take us back 19 years, to a day in December. December 29, 2006 — when skulls and skeletal remains were first discovered in a drain near Moninder Singh Pandher’s bungalow in Sector 31, Noida, on the Delhi–Uttar Pradesh border.

Nearly 20 human remains, mostly of children, were found buried in that drain.
But who was Moninder Singh Pandher? Who is Surinder Koli? And who is truly responsible for the Nithari serial killings?

Let’s explore in detail in Part Two of the special Crime Beat podcast on the Nithari massacre.
I’m Seena Antony, with you.

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In a small village called Nithari, children began disappearing one after another — from a four-year-old to school and college girls — over days and months. Shockingly, no police case was registered at first. Between 2004 and 2006, at least 19 children officially went missing, though reports suggest the real number was higher. Later, the nation was stunned to learn that all of them had been brutally murdered. The case came to light only after the disappearance of a 26-year-old woman named Payal. Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli were arrested, accused of horrific crimes including cannibalism and necrophilia. On July 31, 2025, the Supreme Court acquitted both. What really happened in the Nithari serial killings? Who still keeps the grieving parents in the dark, even 19 years later? Hear part one of the Nithari case on today’s Crime Beat with me, Seena Antony.

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