For the larger part of the bygone year, a debauch millionaire industrialist and his man servant were spending several of their evenings taking turns to rape young children and women, whom they would later strangulate, chop to pieces, soak in a drum of acid, stuff in a gunny bag and dump in the backyard gutter.
Scores of panicky parents in Nithari---rickshaw pullers, washermen, roadside tea vendors, drivers, maids, factory workers-spent the larger part of the last year in fear and despair. They made umpteen futile rounds of the local police station to file a report about their missing children.
Instead of getting assurances from the men in Khaki, they got bribery demands, abuses, humiliation and threats. The policemen laughed off their fears. They exchanged dirty jokes at the expense of the missing 12-year-old girls. They refused to file the FIR in most of the cases; they took no action whatsoever when they did.
Most of those evenings in Noida last year when Moninder Singh Pandher aka Goldy wouldn't have a prostitute to spend night with, his cook would serve his master something different: women who worked as maids, young girls ranging from five to fifteen and, at times, boys.
Most of these victims came from Nithari, a village tucked in on the edges of Noida, which somehow escaped the bulldozer when the grand township --ironically and sadly named after Gautam Buddha- was being carved out.
The servant on the prowl would lure the innocent children into the house with a chocolate or sweets. His bait for the young women would be jobs. The preys would walk into the slaughterhouse and would become the unsuspecting victims of a ghoulish orgy before meeting the horrific end.
The diabetic and diabolic master would devour his victims with Drambuie scotch and heavy doses of insulin. Sometimes the servant would also share the spoils. The master known for his generosity among his friends and workers wouldn't mind.
He would recline in his double bed later, the master, poring over the Kinsey reports on sexual behaviour, smoking a mild Classic and occasionally glancing through his close circuit camera at his servant raping the mauled child late into the night.
The exasperated families kept running from pillar to post. They were all suspicious of the servant of the house. The cops even hauled him a couple of times but released him later. Some of the policemen frequented the slaughterhouse on a regular basis and emerged out of it admiring the master's extravagant lifestyle and subtle sense of humour.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Goldy studied from the elitists and one of the Asia's oldest boarding schools, the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, and graduated in History from St Stephens, Delhi. His Chandigarh acquaintances say he was a man of royal tastes: expensive cars, guns, hunting, electronic gadgets, pornographic collection, women, wine and as it turns out: children.
Owing to his multiple extra-marital alliances and frequent sexual escapades, his shaky marriage was falling apart; his alcohol problem was aggravating, and he had a running feud over a family property with his own brother. Goldy spent most of the last year in Noida, away from his Chandigarh-based family, probably because it was easier to pursue his hedonistic and depraved lifestyle.
With property worth crores and roaring businesses in agricultural equipments, transport, sex and organ industries (highly likely) and a share in a bulldozer company (ironically, the same company's bulldozer eventually razed the drain where skulls were dumped into), the master in his late forties was firmly in control.
It's not established yet, but it's likely that some late evenings last year their neighbour-- a doctor who was given a clean chit in a kidney racket scam earlier--would call. They would chat about weather, human torsos, politics and kidneys.
It's not been probed yet, but it's possible that some late nights Goldy would crouch over his laptop watching the pornographic movies that he would have made of his victims while his man Friday would be busy cutting the bodies into pieces.
What made Goldy think he would get away with scores of abductions, rapes and murders in a town so close to the national capital? His unwavering faith in the corrupt system--which he had exploited to the hilt--power of money which could buy anything, and his high-profile connections, which included top Congress leaders from Punjab, industrialists and high-level officials.
By the end of the year 2006, 38 people had gone missing from Nithari. The count could be much larger, for most of these families wouldn't even dare to approach the policemen.
In the interim, Anant, the son of a multinational CEO, was abducted. It became a national headline. The entire media, the state's top politicians and police officials swung into action. The abduction continued to make top headlines till the boy was brought back.
But nothing changed for the parents of Nithari village.
How come not a single reporter could string together a story out of the Nithari abductions? It was all happening in Noida, the hub of the national television channels, and the local police did have records of several of these missing persons.
Or may be the stories were done, but failed to find prominence for the very reason we are blaming the police and the state for. None of the kidnapped victims came from the media's target audiences. No national newspaper has a beat for the slums like Nithari.
The very media, which is now making righteous noises about the role of the police, slept over the news as corpses of children continued to pile up in a public drain that had not been cleaned for more than ten years.
How come the top state police officials, the opposition, the local MLAs, the MP, and the ruling party didn't take notice of such large-scale abductions? That too in a State, months away from the crucial assembly polls!
How come a crime of such macabre proportions could take place in the national capital region, which Uttar Pradesh flaunts as its model town; the state whose self-styled spokesperson Amar Singh doesn't tire of raving about the progress it has made under the Samajwadi rule; the state whose brand ambassador is Amitabh Bachchan.
The most shocking aspect of the Nithari's horror story is not that a deviant actually DID it; it is the fact that he COULD do it. Over such a long period of time. With such ease. Despite the needle of suspicion pointing towards him.
But then, may be, it's not that shocking after all.
Everything is possible in a State where the unholy nexus among the politics, business and crime is an open secret.
first published:January 04, 2007, 12:24 ISTlast updated:January 04, 2007, 12:24 IST
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Along with the skeletal remains of the mutilated children and young women from the backyard drain of an expansive bungalow in Noida, tumbled out a sackful of disturbing questions, which should haunt us as much as they must be the screaming mothers of Nithari village.
For the larger part of the bygone year, a debauch millionaire industrialist and his man servant were spending several of their evenings taking turns to rape young children and women, whom they would later strangulate, chop to pieces, soak in a drum of acid, stuff in a gunny bag and dump in the backyard gutter.
Scores of panicky parents in Nithari---rickshaw pullers, washermen, roadside tea vendors, drivers, maids, factory workers-spent the larger part of the last year in fear and despair. They made umpteen futile rounds of the local police station to file a report about their missing children.
Instead of getting assurances from the men in Khaki, they got bribery demands, abuses, humiliation and threats. The policemen laughed off their fears. They exchanged dirty jokes at the expense of the missing 12-year-old girls. They refused to file the FIR in most of the cases; they took no action whatsoever when they did.
Most of those evenings in Noida last year when Moninder Singh Pandher aka Goldy wouldn't have a prostitute to spend night with, his cook would serve his master something different: women who worked as maids, young girls ranging from five to fifteen and, at times, boys.
Most of these victims came from Nithari, a village tucked in on the edges of Noida, which somehow escaped the bulldozer when the grand township --ironically and sadly named after Gautam Buddha- was being carved out.
The servant on the prowl would lure the innocent children into the house with a chocolate or sweets. His bait for the young women would be jobs. The preys would walk into the slaughterhouse and would become the unsuspecting victims of a ghoulish orgy before meeting the horrific end.
The diabetic and diabolic master would devour his victims with Drambuie scotch and heavy doses of insulin. Sometimes the servant would also share the spoils. The master known for his generosity among his friends and workers wouldn't mind.
He would recline in his double bed later, the master, poring over the Kinsey reports on sexual behaviour, smoking a mild Classic and occasionally glancing through his close circuit camera at his servant raping the mauled child late into the night.
The exasperated families kept running from pillar to post. They were all suspicious of the servant of the house. The cops even hauled him a couple of times but released him later. Some of the policemen frequented the slaughterhouse on a regular basis and emerged out of it admiring the master's extravagant lifestyle and subtle sense of humour.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Goldy studied from the elitists and one of the Asia's oldest boarding schools, the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, and graduated in History from St Stephens, Delhi. His Chandigarh acquaintances say he was a man of royal tastes: expensive cars, guns, hunting, electronic gadgets, pornographic collection, women, wine and as it turns out: children.
Owing to his multiple extra-marital alliances and frequent sexual escapades, his shaky marriage was falling apart; his alcohol problem was aggravating, and he had a running feud over a family property with his own brother. Goldy spent most of the last year in Noida, away from his Chandigarh-based family, probably because it was easier to pursue his hedonistic and depraved lifestyle.
With property worth crores and roaring businesses in agricultural equipments, transport, sex and organ industries (highly likely) and a share in a bulldozer company (ironically, the same company's bulldozer eventually razed the drain where skulls were dumped into), the master in his late forties was firmly in control.
It's not established yet, but it's likely that some late evenings last year their neighbour-- a doctor who was given a clean chit in a kidney racket scam earlier--would call. They would chat about weather, human torsos, politics and kidneys.
It's not been probed yet, but it's possible that some late nights Goldy would crouch over his laptop watching the pornographic movies that he would have made of his victims while his man Friday would be busy cutting the bodies into pieces.
What made Goldy think he would get away with scores of abductions, rapes and murders in a town so close to the national capital? His unwavering faith in the corrupt system--which he had exploited to the hilt--power of money which could buy anything, and his high-profile connections, which included top Congress leaders from Punjab, industrialists and high-level officials.
By the end of the year 2006, 38 people had gone missing from Nithari. The count could be much larger, for most of these families wouldn't even dare to approach the policemen.
In the interim, Anant, the son of a multinational CEO, was abducted. It became a national headline. The entire media, the state's top politicians and police officials swung into action. The abduction continued to make top headlines till the boy was brought back.
But nothing changed for the parents of Nithari village.
How come not a single reporter could string together a story out of the Nithari abductions? It was all happening in Noida, the hub of the national television channels, and the local police did have records of several of these missing persons.
Or may be the stories were done, but failed to find prominence for the very reason we are blaming the police and the state for. None of the kidnapped victims came from the media's target audiences. No national newspaper has a beat for the slums like Nithari.
The very media, which is now making righteous noises about the role of the police, slept over the news as corpses of children continued to pile up in a public drain that had not been cleaned for more than ten years.
How come the top state police officials, the opposition, the local MLAs, the MP, and the ruling party didn't take notice of such large-scale abductions? That too in a State, months away from the crucial assembly polls!
How come a crime of such macabre proportions could take place in the national capital region, which Uttar Pradesh flaunts as its model town; the state whose self-styled spokesperson Amar Singh doesn't tire of raving about the progress it has made under the Samajwadi rule; the state whose brand ambassador is Amitabh Bachchan.
The most shocking aspect of the Nithari's horror story is not that a deviant actually DID it; it is the fact that he COULD do it. Over such a long period of time. With such ease. Despite the needle of suspicion pointing towards him.
But then, may be, it's not that shocking after all.
Everything is possible in a State where the unholy nexus among the politics, business and crime is an open secret.
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