Nithari’s Auschwitz

Akash Bisht Noida

This is not any ordinary crime story; it’s a story of how the poor and the marginalised are given second -class treatment by the people in power in this country. It’s a story of the struggle of the powerless against the powerful. It’s a story of how helpless the poor are and how flawed the criminal justice system is. It’s about how more than 30 innocent children belonging to migrant workers in Nithari village of Noida were brutally butchered, sodomised, raped and chopped up for reasons that still remain clouded in perverse mystery.

Nithari is a small village of migrants who have come all the way from Bihar and West Bengal in search of better lives. They have no vote, no identity cards or self-identity, no godfathers or patrons, and no money or permanent shelters, and hence, no access to police or administration. They were helpless and had nowhere to go while their children were being sexually abused and slaughtered. The police refused to register their complaints and shooed them away with threats when they went to lodge complaints against their missing children. The duo of Surendra Koli, a cook, and Moninder Singh Pandher, an influential businessman, reportedly killed several children at the latter’s residence, D5, Sector 31, Noida. These macabre serial killings were enacted in broad daylight right under the nose of the police and administration, and it went on for years despite complaints by the people and the National Commission for Women.

Like many other small ‘unorganised workers’ settlements that have mushroomed near posh colonies in New Delhi and the National Capital Region who cater to the daily needs of the rich, Nithari remains invisible between bungalows and high-rise apartments with most of its inhabitants working as domestic help and rickshaw-pullers. The occupants of D5 were aware that the children of the migrant families were easy prey as compared with the children of well-off families. Barely a month back, when the son of a super-rich CEO was kidnapped from Noida, the police was quick to respond and claimed to have picked up the kidnappers in just two days. However, one by one, more than 30 children (now the numbers seem to be increasing) disappeared from Nithari, while the police chose to play blind. 

The locals repeatedly kept pleading to the police to search for their missing children but the police refused even to lodge an FIR. They also threatened them with dire consequences, if they came in search of their kids ever again to the police station. “My father was told that he shouldn’t show his face again in the police station otherwise they would break all his teeth,” said a terrified Surjeet, 14, brother of Rimpa Haldar, who was one of Koli’s victims. “I paid Rs 1,000 to a police inspector so that he could do something to search my son. He told us that there was nothing to worry and he would get our son back soon. But the only thing we could manage to get were his clothes,” said a sobbing Rajesh Kumar, father of one of the victims. “They abused and roughed me up when I went to the police station in search of my daughter,” recalled Iti Biswas, mother of Pushpa Biswas, another victim.