New Delhi/Allahabad:

The Allahabad High Court today acquitted the prime accused in infamous Nithari killings, Surinder Koli, in 12 cases in which he was handed death penalty by a trial court.

Moninder Singh’s Pandher, the co-accused in the case, has also been acquitted in two cases.

Officials said Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher, who were awarded death sentences on the charges of rape and murder, have been acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The death sentences of both Koli and Pandher stand cancelled after the big high court verdict.

The serial killings took place at Moninder Singh Pandher’s home in Nithari area of Uttar Pradesh’s Noida between 2005 and 2006.

Surinder Koli worked as a help at Pandher’s home. Koli would lure the children into the house, where he and Pandher raped and murdered them, it’s alleged.

They would chop the bodies of the children and throw the parts in drains to destroy the evidence.

The case came to light after the neighbours found body parts of a missing child in a drain near Pandher’s home.

Investigation then led the police to a series of gruesome murders of several more children, after which the case was taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI had filed 19 cases against Pandher and Koli in 2007.

Surinder Koli was found guilty of rape and murder of several children at his employer’s house. Koli had earlier confessed to having sex with the dead victims and also eating their body parts.

The duo was also convicted for rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman.