Nithari killings: Koli to be sentenced today

Au00a0special court will Wednesday pronounce the quantum of punishment to domestic help Surender Koli, convicted for the rape and murder of seven-year-old Arti from Noida's Nithari village.

Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) judge A.K. Singh held Koli guilty of the crime May 4. The quantum of punishment was to be pronounced May 5 but the court adjourned the hearing till May 12.

The court had convicted Koli of the rape and murder of Arti who had disappeared from her home in September 2006. She was among the 19 women and children from Nithari village whose body parts were found in a drain.

Of the 17 chargesheets in the Nithari murder cases, the judgment in the first case of Rimpa Haldhar was pronounced about a year ago -- main accused Koli and his employer Pandher were sentenced to death by a lower court in Ghaziabad.

The Allahabad High Court upheld the lower court's punishment given to Koli but gave a clean chit to Pandher, who was said to be away in Australia when Rimpa's killing took place on his house.