The special CBI court on Friday pronounced the death sentence on businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic aide Surinder Koli in the Rimpa Haldar murder case, the first of several cases in the infamous Nithari killings.

For the teenager’s murder, special judge Rama Jain pronounced capital punishment on the duo along with a fine of Rs 50,000. For kidnapping, they were given life sentence along with Rs 20,000 penalty, and seven years of rigorous imprisonment for rape and destruction of evidence.

A senior lawyer said Koli could get an additional imprisonment of one-and-a-half years for failure to pay the penalty amount.

The hearing for the quantum of punishment began at 11.30 am in the packed courtroom, with senior public prosecutor S P Ahluwalia citing various cases from past judgments to hammer in the fact that 38-year-old Koli deserved capital punishment. “Koli had admitted in his confessional statement that he had strangled the girl (Rimpa) after luring her inside D-5,” the CBI counsel argued. Ahluwalia said Koli has admitted that he took the body to the bathroom and sliced out flesh from the body with a kitchen knife, cooked and ate it.

Citing it as a ‘rarest of rare’ crime, Ahluwalia sought capital punishment for Koli. Another CBI counsel told the court that a forensic experts’ report on Koli diagnosed him as paedophilic (one who has sex with children) and necrophilic (sex with corpse). But in Pandher’s case, the counsel said “whatever (punishment) the court deems fit, we will accept that”.

Pandher’s family plans to file an appeal against the orders in Allahabad High Court on Saturday.

Rimpa Haldar, 14, had come to Noida in 2005 to assist her mother when the latter took ill. She had gone to a Sector-31 house, where her mother worked as a help. She went missing on February 8, 2005. Along with Rimpa’s, remains of many other minors and young women were discovered from a drain near Pandher’s house in December 2006.

‘Keep up interest in other cases’