Please let me meet him one last time, pleads Surinder Koli’s mother

ALMORA: Surinder Koli, indicted in the Nithari killings and sentenced to death, has received a week’s reprieve from the hangman’s noose on the orders of the Supreme Court. His 62-year-old mother, who lives alone in Mungrukhal village of Almora district, is inconsolable. Pleading for one last meeting with her son, Kunti Devi says that if her son is guilty, so is Moninder Pandher, his wealthy former employer.The two must hang together, Kunti Devi says.
Even though news of the stay on Koli’s impending hanging had been played umpteen times on television and the internet since late Sunday, Kunti Devi only came to know of it late Monday afternoon, when the tehsildar of Syaldhey block and revenue police officials visited her with the death warrant of her son Surinder Koli.
She refused to consent and sign the warrant, and requested the tehsildar, police officials, assembled reporters and the government to please arrange one last meeting with her son.
Speaking to TOI, the grief-stricken Kunti Devi, tears flowing down her wrinkled cheeks, said, “I don’t know what to do. If my son is guilty, then house-owner Pandher is also guilty. Hang them both.” Koli had moved out of Almora over ten years ago, and had been in Pandher employ for over a year when the crimes came to light in 2007.
Asked what she thought of the temporary reprieve that has come with the intervention of the Supreme Court, she said, “I wish I could do something. But what can I do? I’m helpless to prevent the death of my son.”
Speaking to people who had assembled in her house, the woman asked if there was someone who could take her to see her son, currently lodged in the Meerut jail.
Seven years after Nithari killings came to light, the gram pradhan of Koli’s native village and his former neighbours cannot believe that the Surinder Koli they knew could have committed such grievous crimes – he is accused of sexually exploiting several children, killing many of them, and even cooking their flesh. Police have said that about 30 children were victims in the case. The crimes occurred in 2005-06. Koli was convicted of five murders.
“I have known Koli for many years. We grew up together. Having known him, I cannot believe that he could have done something so terrible,” said Anand Ram, gram pradhan of Mungrukhal village.
Everyone in the village believes that Moninder Pandher, owner of the house in which Surinder worked as a servant, a rich man, worked his influence on witnesses in the case and falsely implicated Koli.
“How did it happen that Pandher had no clue about the crimes in his own house?” asked the bewildered Anand Ram. “Everybody knows that this is a case of implication. Coming from the quiet mountains, where the crime rate is almost negligible, how could Surinder do these things?”
Meanwhile, Sanjay Singh Kashyap, a social activist from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar and general secretary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, reached Mungrukhal village after a night-long journey to take Kunti Devi to Meerut and arrange a meeting with her son.
“This case is above politics. Although I have come from very far, I do not know how to manage the travel for Kunti Devi. She is weak, her vision is poor, and she does not walk quite comfortably. Travelling by bus would be hard for her,” Kashyap said, adding that he was determined to arrange a last meeting between mother and son.