Second Nithari killings case: Court postpones hearing to May 12

A special CBI court here today fixed May 12 for deciding the quantum of sentence to be awarded to Surender Koli, one of the accused in sensational Nithari killings case, held guilty for raping and murdering seven-year-old girl Arti.

Special additional district and session judge AK Singh yesterday convicted 38-year-old Koli in the Arti murder case.

"The court has fixed May 12 as the next date for hearing to decide upon the quantum of judgement," Arti's lawyer Sanjay Tyagi said.

Both businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Koli were on February 13, 2009, sentenced to death in the Rimpa Haldar case. However, Pandher was later acquitted by the Allahabad high court on September 11, 2009.

Arti's rape and murder is the second conviction out of the total of 19 cases related to rape and murder of children and a young woman, whose body parts were found in a drain behind Pandher's D-31 bungalow in Nithari in Noida in Uttar Pradesh in 2006.

Koli has been found guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of Indian Penal Code.

Koli was named as the lone accused in the chargesheet filed by CBI which gave a clean chit to Pandher after it took over the probe into killings from the local police.