Nithari Nightmare: Skeletons in Mulayam Government’s Cupboard?
(Following militant protests by families of the children and young women who fell victim to a macabre serial killing episode in Noida, a team from AIPWA met the protesting women and participated in their protests. Kumudini Pati comments on the implications of Nithari. –Ed.)
The skeletons that have tumbled out of the cupboard in Noida, the showcase industrial township of Mulayam’s ‘Uttam Pradesh’, have raised several disturbing questions. It appears that the spine-chilling industry of little children’s lives has been going on for at least two years. We visited Nithari and met the victims’ families, half-crazy with the anger at the police officials who ignored their plight, and that nagging doubt that keeps them sleepless – had they tried harder, had they fought back earlier, could their children have been saved? We also met several of the women who, though their own children were safe, had been at the forefront of the militant protests that erupted at the gates of D-5 sector 31, the house of the killer Moninder Singh Pandher.
CPI(ML) Protests Rape of Girls On the night of 17 January, two girls were picked up by armed men from a madarsa at Karaili (Allahabad), taken to a nearby field and raped. Ever since, the girls were being pressurised by police to withdraw or dilute their complaints. Suspecting the involvement of land mafia forces protected by the Government, the CPI(ML) UP State Secretary Comrade Akhilendra took the initiative of meeting the Governor with a delegation on January 20, demanding a CBI enquiry. The delegation consisted of PDF General Secretary Nihaluddin, PUCL activist and senior advocate Ravi Kiran Jain, National Vice President of Kisan Manch Hriday Narayan Shukla, Janmorcha District President Mangaldev Dwivedi, Co-convenor of Jagrit Manch Zafar Baksh, former MLA Anugrah Narayan Singh and JSN General Secretary Pranay Krishna. They pointed out that statistics of missing children in UP are mind-boggling – a reported 1800. The brazen snatching of girls from a madarsa hostel at Allahabad and their subsequent rape is, after Nithari, yet another instance of the insecurity of young people in Mulayam’s UP. On 22 January, CPI(ML) participated in a protest dharna with other democratic forces. Expressing the apprehension that innocent youth have been arrested for the crime, a DNA test to establish the guilty was demanded, and the demand for CBI enquiry reiterated. |
How could kidnapping and massacre on such a large scale (68 children reported missing in Nithari itself, and no count of those who were too poor and destitute to report the matter, but just assumed their kids fell victim to the horrors that are the daily plague of the poor) go on for so long, without escaping detection? Locals from Nithari told us that children were regularly being lured with sweets or money, and the older girls and women with jobs.
A large part of the answer can be found in the profile of the killer – and their victims. Pandher is a successful businessman, a graduate of St. Stephen’s College, from a prestigious public school, flush with weighty political connections. And the parents of those who went missing were from lower middle class housing blocks and working class shanties, socially and economically marginalised. Most of them report experiences of complaining to the police, suspecting the inhabitants of D-5, pointing out the stench and occasional surfacing of body parts from the drain, asking for a raid on the house. It was all too easy for the police to dismiss them, to accuse them of prostituting their children, to rudely tell them to keep off Pandher’s back. Nithari is yet another reminder that the investigation and justice are reserved for the rich and privileged. Contrast the plight of these families with that of the Adobe CEO whose son was kidnapped some time back in the self-same Noida. There are still uncomfortable questions about the role of the police, and the possibility that ransom was paid, in that case too – but there was a media outcry, police was under a scanner, and the child did come back. Safely.
Will the truth about Nithari ever be known? An initial statement by doctors noted that the bodies had not been hacked – they had been cut with surgical precision, raising the spectre of organ trade. However, later, this line of enquiry, though not altogether ruled out by the CBI, has been questioned. Efforts seem to be on to paint the servant Koli as the main villain of the piece, with claims that he has confessed to sexual abuse and cannibalism and that he is a deranged person with an unquenchable appetite for blood. Was Koli the main predator or a mere paid Man Friday? Is it a case of psychologically deranged serial killing, or something more sinister and organised?
The apprehension of a cover-up remains, given the lengths to which key figures in the Government have gone to shield Pandher. Mulayam Singh’s brother Shivpal Yadav, known to be a major power centre in UP, declared that “such things keep happening”. Even Congress leader and UPA minister, Hans Raj Bhardwaj said in Banaras, ‘Nithari-Vithari to hota rahta hai’ (Nitharis keep happening). Certainly the matter goes beyond mere ‘inaction’ or ‘insensitivity’, and the collusion of political figures close to Pandher, as well as the administration and police in the whole episode ought to be part and parcel of any investigation.