- Discovery of human remains in Nithari in 2006 revealed multiple missing children and women cases
- Surendra Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher were accused but acquitted by courts due to weak evidence
- The Allahabad High Court criticized the investigation as flawed and biased against Koli
The Nithari killings remain one of the most disturbing criminal cases to emerge from Noida. In December 2006, the discovery of human remains near a bungalow in Nithari brought to light the disappearance of several children and young women and triggered a nationwide investigation.
Nearly two decades later, the case became the inspiration for Netflix's Sector 36, starring Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal.
Directed by Aditya Nimbalkar and written by Bodhayan Roychaudhury, the 2024 crime thriller fictionalises the events rather than presenting a direct retelling of the case. Netflix describes the film as being "inspired by true events".
The case has returned to the headlines after Surendra Koli, one of the men accused in the Nithari killings, was found dead at his tea stall in Haridwar on September 18, 2026.
Police have described the death as an apparent suicide. No suicide note was found, and an investigation is underway.
What Happened In Nithari?
Nithari is a village in Noida's Sector 31, close to Delhi. Between 2005 and 2006, several children and young women from the area went missing. For their families, the disappearances initially appeared to be separate cases.
The horrifying truth emerged in December 2006 when human remains were discovered in drains and an area close to the house of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher. The recovery of skulls, bones and other remains led investigators to connect the discoveries with the missing-person cases. The case subsequently involved multiple FIRs and a CBI investigation.
The investigation centred on Pandher, the owner of the house, and his domestic help Surendra Koli. Koli was accused in several of the cases and was subsequently convicted in multiple trials, while Pandher was also prosecuted.
The Investigation And The Confessions
The case attracted enormous media attention as investigators tried to establish what had happened to the missing children and women.
Koli's alleged confessions became an important part of the prosecution's case. Investigators also carried out forensic examinations and searches around the bungalow and nearby drains.
However, the evidence used against the accused was subsequently subjected to extensive judicial scrutiny. In 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Koli and Pandher in multiple cases, finding serious deficiencies in the prosecution's evidence and investigation. In July 2025, the Supreme Court upheld those acquittals.
The Supreme Court subsequently dealt with Koli's final pending conviction. In November 2025, it allowed his curative petition and acquitted him in that case as well, ordering his release if he was not required in any other matter.
What Did The Courts Say About The Nithari Investigation?
The Allahabad High Court had sharply criticised the manner in which the investigation was conducted.
As reported by The Hindu, the Bench observed, "The casual and perfunctory manner in which important aspects of arrest, recovery and confession have been dealt with are most disheartening, to say the least. Nithari Killings is nothing short of a betrayal of public trust by responsible agencies. It appears to us that the investigation opted for the easy course of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonising him, without taking due care to probe more serious aspects of possible involvement in organised activity of organ trading."
The Supreme Court's 2025 proceedings also examined the evidentiary foundation of Koli's conviction. The Court noted that the same confession and recovery evidence had been rejected in the companion cases and that maintaining the conviction in the remaining case would create an irreconcilable outcome.
The Supreme Court ultimately said the identity of the actual perpetrator had not been established to the required legal standard.
Who Were The Victims?
The Nithari investigation involved cases concerning several missing children and young women. Human remains recovered from the area were examined by forensic teams, with investigators attempting to establish the identities of the victims.
According to reports from the time, most of those who disappeared were children, while Payal, who was 20, was among the adult victims. The remains recovered from the area included skulls and bones, while forensic examinations attempted to establish links between the remains and families who had reported people missing.
The scale of the discoveries, combined with the fact that many of the missing were young children, made the Nithari case a national story.
How Did Nithari Inspire Sector 36?
Sector 36 takes the broad framework of the Nithari case and turns it into a fictional crime thriller. The film follows the disappearance of children from a settlement and the investigation that eventually leads a police officer towards a serial killer.
Vikrant Massey plays Prem Singh, the film's antagonist, while Deepak Dobriyal plays Inspector Ram Charan Pandey. Netflix's official description says the story follows a corrupt police officer who is forced to pursue a serial killer after several children disappear.
The film's fictional characters have parallels with people from the real case. Prem Singh has been widely linked to Koli, while the character played by Akash Khurana has similarities to Pandher. However, the film changes names, circumstances and aspects of the story rather than reproducing the case exactly.
This distinction is important because Sector 36 is not a documentary. It uses the Nithari killings as source material while constructing its own narrative around crime, police investigation, power and social inequality. Netflix itself described the film as "inspired by true events".
Where Is The Nithari Case Now?
The legal history of the case took a dramatic turn after years of convictions and death sentences. The Allahabad High Court acquitted Koli and Pandher in multiple cases in October 2023. The Supreme Court upheld those acquittals in July 2025.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court also acquitted Koli in the last remaining case against him, bringing his legal proceedings related to the Nithari killings to an end.
Koli was subsequently released from prison. On September 18, 2026, he was found dead inside a tea stall he was operating in Haridwar. Police said his body was found hanging and that no suicide note had been recovered. A post-mortem and investigation are underway, so the circumstances of his death remain subject to the authorities' inquiry.