PICTURE SPEAK

PICTURE SPEAK

CLUES : Whiskey crates and victims' clothes recovered from D-5

ALLEGATIONS

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: Pandher sexually abused children of all age groups in his house. POLICE VERSION: Pandher confessed to using the children for oral sex but nothing more. He says it was Koli who was responsible for all the acts of depravity. SERIAL KILLING: He killed over 30 children and women, remains of 17 found near his house. POLICE VERSION: Pandher has denied any hand in the killings, again putting the blame on his servant. He did order Koli to "get rid of" Payal, a prostitute, who was blackmailing him. This killing led the police to his house. CANNIBALISM: Certain body parts of victims were eaten since only bones have been found. POLICE VERSION: No evidence found FLESH TRADE: Pandher used kidnapped girls to run a prostitution racket in his house. POLICE VERSION: No evidence found. Pandher admitted that he used prostitutes regularly but he had no motive to indulge in such a racket for money. ORGAN TRADE: Torsos were used to trade body parts; only skull and limb bones of victims found. POLICE VERSION: No evidence to substantiate this. Pandher did not have the expertise to run such a racket. PAEDOPHILIA: Pandher was in charge of a paedophile ring and used kidnapped kids for this. POLICE VERSION: Pornographic CDs and photos of nude children found in his house but no evidence of a ring.

PICTURE SPEAK

EVIDENCE : Clothes of victims from the drain of Pandher's Noida house

He has no criminal record and his family members and acquaintances, still stunned by allegations of a grisly crime spree, portray him as a "decent fellow" with a penchant for good life. His only son Karandeep Singh, 22, has rallied behind his father saying, "he was a doting dad who brought me up like a prince (see interview)." Adds another family friend: "He was affable, with an affluent lifestyle but discreet about his not-too-happy family life."

A LESSER GOD

PICTURE SPEAK UNFAIR : Kin of missing children outside the house of Adobe India CEO Naresh Gupta After the shocking fact that missing children have such low police priority, new laws are on the anvil. When police officers check the crime charts, they show concern about an increase in thefts, murders or even chain snatching but not missing persons. Missing cases are so low on policing priority that it is a miracle that more incidents like Nithari have not occurred. The National Human Rights Commission estimates that 45,000 children go missing every year in India. The Women and Child Development Ministry believes it could be thrice as much while NGOs and social workers say the actual numbers may be close to three million. In Delhi, 21,561 people are reported missing every year including 16,000 children. Add to it another 50,000 homeless and it's a frightening scenario. Kiran Bedi, dg (training), agrees that there is very little emphasis on locating missing children by the police or even society. The various laws as they exist today do not make any provision for missing children. In fact, only Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have police acts which make it incumbent upon police to follow up such complaints. The WCD ministry under Renuka Chowdhury is contemplating some steps that may have far-reaching impact. "We are contemplating a National commission for children which will cater to complaints related to children with strong legal powers." The aim is to give it the status of a high court which can summon police officers and witnesses and direct state governments. Anuj Bhargava who runs the National Centre for Missing Children, points out that there are three broad categories under which missing children can be classified. Those who have been lured away into crime, begging etc; those who have been drawn into the flesh trade and those who run away in search of a better life and are rarely sought by their parents. He claims that about 10 lakh children can be runaways. Missing children are a classic example of where jurisprudence is headed. "Policing reflects society's values. The system is geared towards securing the middle class and money. There is more emphasis on finding a stolen car than finding a human life," says Sagar Hudda, Joint Commissioner, Delhi Police. The ordinary constable or junior officers multi-task and are rarely able to master any one stream of policing. Social biases then take over and the powerless and poor get the rough end of policing. When is "Missing" classified as kidnap? This is where the bias is at its most brutal. Police are most reluctant to register firs for kidnapping under Section 363 till a ransom demand is made and that rarely happens in the case of poor children who may have been lifted for begging or prostitution or as in the Nithari case, for every possible violation, including dismembering and serial murders. At the time of the kidnapping of Anant Gupta, son of a rich entrepreneur, hundreds of poor parents from Nithari had collected at Guptas' Noida residence with the pictures of their children but neither television crews nor the cops had paid any attention to their cries for justice. The blame lies as much with society and the media as it does with police procedures and attitude. -By Neeraj Mishra

Indeed, the only abnormal streak that has emerged in Pandher's personality is his dysfunctional marriage. And that could hold the key to the enigma of his dual life. Pandher confessed under interrogation that he had a 'powerful sexual urge'. He has been separated from his wife Davinder Kaur, daughter of an affluent Karnal-based doctor, for the last two years and had shifted residence from Chandigarh to Ghaziabad, and then Noida in 2002 to run a dealership in JCB equipment in addition to his other businesses. That separation, according to family sources, led to extra-marital affairs and when that wasn't enough to satisfy his sexual appetite, he took to hiring prostitutes, one of whom would lead the police to his door.

POLITICS OF CRIME

PICTURE SPEAK FACE-OFF : Sonia and Singh (right) trade charges Upcoming elections add political gamesmanship to the mix From the house of horrors, Nithari became the theatre of the absurd as political oneupmanship, with an eye on the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, took centrestage. First there was a shocking statement by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's brother and PWD minister Shivpal Singh Yadav that Nithari was a "minor and routine incident". Then Congress President Sonia Gandhi visited the village and questioned the "virtually non-existent" law and order situation in the state. The BJP added its bit with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also pointing a finger at the law and order situation. Mulayam was caught in a bind. Having rejected the call for a CBI probe into the incident initially, he had to give in following uproar over Shivpal's remarks and the growing public anger over the killings. Reluctant to visit the crime site himself because of a reported jinx that any chief minister who visits Noida loses his chair, Mulayam sent his chief firefighter Amar Singh to Nithari to distribute compensation and letters of allotment of residential plots to the affected families. In an election year, nobody wants to miss an opportunity of putting the state Government under pressure. The chief minister may have made his own efforts at damage control but the harm has already been done. How far will Nithari affect the electoral fortunes of Mulayam remains to be seen. -By Subhash Mishra

What took place behind that door is slowly emerging and adding to the psychological portrait that the police are putting together with the help of NARCO analysis, truth serums and brain mapping. It's a journey into the heart of darkness. The house where Pandher lived with his Man Friday was secluded, the gates were kept locked and none of the neighbours remember seeing any visitors during daytime. Koli used to do all the household chores and vendors were discouraged from visiting the house except for a cleaning maid. It was at night, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., that residents would see cars driving up and signs of activity. Most of the visitors were rich and powerful. His estranged wife's relatives had close connections with the political class of Punjab and Haryana. Davinder's uncle Mohinder Singh Gill was a former minister and president of the Punjab Congress. Davinder is also a close relative of Rana Gurjit Singh, sugar baron and Congress MP.

Politicians and senior bureaucrats from Punjab and Haryana would visit D-5 regularly, mainly to drink the expensive liquor that Pandher kept in his well-stocked bar on the first floor of the house. His personal favourite was Royal Stag, cases of which were found in the house. Drink and sex had started dominating Pandher's life. Family sources and friends admit he had started drinking heavily-over a bottle of whiskey a day-while his extra-marital involvements had prompted his wife to demand a separation and led them to send their son to Canada to study. Pandher's heavy drinking had caused medical problems in his liver and pancreas and eventually, turned him into a diabetic. For the last two years, Davinder was in Chandigarh while Pandher stayed in Noida. "He visited Chandigarh but his marriage had collapsed," says a family member.

INTERVIEW | KARANDEEP SINGH

PICTURE SPEAK "My dad is no monster" Pandher's son Karandeep Singh spoke exclusively to Assistant Editor Ramesh Vinayak. Excerpts: On Pandher's drinking He was into excessive drinking but he gave up alcohol after his pancrea was damaged. He would only take a glass of beer or wine. On his parents' relationship They have been a normal couple. Had their married life been so tumultuous, my mother would have left him for good. On their separation My mother moved to Chandigarh two years ago to take care of my ailing grandfather. Also, since my father was frequently travelling out of Noida, she didn't feel comfortable staying there alone. We had a nasty litigation with our uncle. so my mother thought it prudent to stay put in Chandigarh. My father used to visit Chandigarh at least once a fortnight. On his father He was the most normal person you could meet, gentle and sober. On allegations his father was a paedophile and a serial killer This has come as a big shock for us. My father just cannot be party to such heinous crimes. If my father is a psychopath or monster as he is being portrayed by the media, then I don't know what a normal person is. If the judiciary holds him guilty, let him be hanged. But, who will compensate him if he comes clean in the investigations? On the bones recovered from Pandher's Noida premises We bought and moved to the Noida house in March 2004. All these skeletons and remains have been found in the drains outside our premises. How can all this be attributed to my father who has no medical background? On his father being a loner He was never a loner. But as his business was expanding-he had set up five dealerships of JCB company in Uttar Pradesh since 1999-he had lesser time for the family. He was brilliant in business and was totally engaged in it despite not keeping good health. On servant Koli When we hired Surendra, he was docile and obedient. But, there was something amiss about his behaviour lately. When I went to Noida in November, I found him cocky and rude which was not what I had known him to be. Most of the times I found him talking on his mobile on the roof. I had told my mother about his cocky behavior.

Adding to the domestic tension was the fact that Pandher was entangled in a bitter land dispute with his brother Iqbal Singh. The brothers, who split up eight years ago, are involved in over half-a-dozen court cases over the family property in posh Sector 27 of Chandigarh, and in Ludhiana and Ambala. Last month, Pandher's nephew Mandeep had filed a complaint with the Panchkula police claiming threat to his life and sent copies to the Prime Minister Office and the Congress president because of Moninder's political clout.

Pandher had succeeded in expanding the family transport business to the point where his income was reportedly in the region of Rs 30 lakh a month. That affluence only seems to have fuelled his sexually-deviant behaviour. The recovery of pornographic CDs and photographs from the Noida house suggests that Pandher was also a paedophile. Under interrogation, he is reported to have confessed that during a trip to Bangkok two years ago, he had obtained CDs of young children indulging in sex and also visited sex parlours and clubs where such activity took place. He, however, insisted during interrogation that he did not have sex with any of the Nithari children but only used them for oral sex after which he handed them over to Koli, who raped and then slaughtered them. That has also prompted the police to examine whether there was a child pornography racket going on in D-5.

THE LABYRINTH OF BRAIN

PICTURE SPEAK INSIDE OUT : Koli and Pandher at the GDFS Sophisticated technology provides the CBI ways of getting at the truth Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli were put through three sophisticated forensic tests at the Gujarat Directorate of Forensic Science (GDFS) at Gandhinagar, the most advanced laboratory of its kind in the country. A team of 15 experts including doctors put the duo through 50 hours of lie-detector tests, brain mapping and truth serum tests or NARCO-analysis over a period of five days. Narco-analysis or the truth serum test is based on the principle that a man uses his imagination to lie. Pandher and Koli were administered sodium pentothal and made to lie on a bed. The chemical makes the subject semiconscious and neutralises that part of the brain which triggers imagination. The accused is then asked questions by psychologists. With his capacity to lie neutralised, the subject speaks the truth in a semiconscious state. Though there are people with high IQ and strong personality who can evade NARCO-analysis, experts say the chances of this are very low. There is also the lie-detector test the duo were subjected to. In this, the subject is made to sit on a chair and monitors are connected to the body with the help of straps. These then show chan-ges in heart beats and pulse rate as the subject answers questions put by forensic experts. If the person is involved in a crime his heart beat and pulse rate won't remain normal while answering the questions. Brain mapping or brain finger printing is also called electrical oscillation. In this test, the accused is made to sit on a chair and sophisticated sensors are attached to his head. Then he is made to see visuals connected with that particular crime on TV and is also made to hear words or language revolving around the crime through a speaker. It is based on the principle that when the brain recognises a person or a sound it generates a particular electric wave. If the person is involved in the crime, the sensor registers the reactions in the mind of the accused on seeing the images and words. Final results of the forensic probe may take some time but going by the past record of the GDFS, truth will come out sooner than later. -By Uday Mahurkar

Police and the media have also focused on the possibility of an organ racket, based on the fact that only bones have been recovered so far, even though many of the killings were fairly recent. However, investigators rule out this possibility on the basis that Pandher was a rich man and had no need for extra money. They also point to the fact that drums containing what they suspect to be acid were recovered from the terrace of the house where Koli would slaughter his victims. Koli himself is uneducated and would not have had the expertise required to remove and preserve organs. They suspect that Pandher would have known that acid was the easiest way to dissolve flesh and that bones scattered in a filthy, garbage-strewn drain that only residents of D-5 had access to, would go undetected.

PICTURE SPEAK

HOUSE OF DARKNESS: Many macabre incidents took place behind the closed doors of D-5

Dr Avinash D'Souza, a Mumbai-based consulting psychiatrist, adds that serial killers are generally well placed in life, have a family, children and a good work environment but they often have another darker side to their personality. This dark side could originate due to one or more of certain factors: history of abuse as a child (so he does the same to other children), a disturbed sexual life as an adult or not being sexually satisfied, or someone who believes myths like having sex with children cures impotence or sexually transmitted diseases. "This case is very unique and almost without precedent in Indian criminal history because it combines child sexual abuse with suspected necrophilia. The perpetrators feel it is easier to overpower a child and hence get a false sense of power and security. This feeling of no resistance takes a more extreme form in necrophilia," he says.

Dr Ravi S. Pandey, professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS, believes that Pandher is a classic case of Social Personality Disorder which reflects gross disparity between an individual's behaviour and prevailing social norms. It usually has signs of extreme cruelty or callousness. The hallmarks of a 'dissocial personality' are: callous unconcern for the feelings of others; gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms; incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, and the ability to ditch people close to them very easily. They also display a very low tolerance to frustration and low threshold to discharge of aggression (including violence), incapacity to experience guilt and a marked proneness to find plausible rationalisations for their behaviour. In addition, such people have a propensity towards alcohol and drugs, usually have very high IQ and, therefore, are able to fake emotions convincingly. In the West, says Pandey, these people meet violent deaths or go to jail. "But in India, they stay hidden in the broad rubric of society."

Just like Pandher. Despite the manner in which the Noida police bungled the case, there is little doubt that Pandher is as guilty as the man who actually carried out the serial killings, his accomplice Koli. Koli's bloody spree is also the result of a sexual abnormality. He told police that he suffered from impotency and approached a tantrik for help. The tantrik, according to his confession, told him that he would be cured if he had sex with corpses.

So far, direct evidence linking Pandher to the killing spree is circumstantial-the confession of Koli, clothes and the belongings of the victims recovered from the infamous house, the remains of bodies in the drain and Pandher's own statement that he asked Koli to get rid of Payal.

At the forensic science facility at Gandhinagar, Koli's lie-detector tests, brain mapping and NARCO-analysis revealed that he was a paedophile and a necrophile who handled the killings and also the disposal of the bodies. Tests showed Koli's sexual perversion was driven by his impotency and was further spurred by the opulent lifestyle of his boss Pandher. Says a forensic expert involved in the investigation: "The initial indicators were that the killings by the two had more to do with sexual perversion than trade in human organs." Pandher, they say, was "stubborn as well as cunning, he appeared to be trying to dodge the experts."

Whether he can dodge a jail sentence or worse, is the crucial question. As the CBI readies to take over the case, there are several question marks over the quality of incriminating evidence remaining in D-5, a crime scene contaminated by bumbling police who even allowed the media and some of the parents of missing children to take a tour of the house.

The CBI believes that the scene of crime remains the most potent source of nailing the culprits. It faces several handicaps though, not the least among them being lack of eyewitnesses and non-recovery of weapons of crime. "Matching DNA is the key. Human skeletons have been recovered from around the house and there has been recovery of some blood stains and possibly human flesh from various places inside. We will have to link the two," says a source in the CBI. They will also need to collect sufficient circumstantial evidence. The police appear to be depending more on the confession of the accused and the statements of witnesses who may or may not have something substantial to offer, depending on linkages. Moreover, the results of NARCO-analysis and brain mapping etc are non-admissible as evidence.

Dr Rajat Mitra, a forensic psychologist who works with the Delhi Police, says Nithari, in a tragic kind of way, has "brought to the fore the grim reality that our society too has violent, bizarre and destructive people whom we need to understand." Dr Mitra, who has worked with four serial killers, says they simultaneously inhabit two worlds. One is the normal world where one of them could be the man sitting next to us in a restaurant but their minds are a dark twisted world of perversion and fantasy. Almost every serial killer has a gory signature with sexuality and arousal forming the core of most of the crimes.

According to Dr Mitra, Pandher's modus operandi fits in with the profile of serial killers who choose the catchment area for their crimes. If a serial killer chooses to kill prostitutes, he would hang around in a red light area. Pandher chose an area which had children of migrant labourers whose lives did not matter to anyone, and Surendra continued the killing spree emboldened by the thrill of not being caught for so long.

P. S Nayar, a former forensic scientist with the CBI, had spent a lifetime dusting and scouring crime scenes for the smallest bits of evidence. A fragment of a fingerprint he recovered from the rear view mirror of the Fiat car in which Billa and Ranga had abducted, raped and killed teenaged Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay Chopra in 1978, helped send the accused to the gallows. "Eyewitnesses alone will not suffice, if the courts are convinced, an accused can be convicted on the basis of forensic science alone,'' says Nayar.

If Pandher and Koli are indeed partners in the serial killings of at least 17 children, the CBI will have to find crucial DNA links. That remains the key to bringing some measure of justice for the grieving parents of Nithari.