Businessman, Butler Been Busy Butchering Babies

The Indian media has dubbed him the Butcher of Noida-- Moninder Singh Pandher, the millionaire businessman who is at the center of the continent’s most horrendous case of sexual depravity and pedophile serial killing.

He is accused with his manservant, Surendra Kohli, of as many as 40 cases of kidnapping young children, raping and abusing them (in some instances after they had died) and then strangling them and cutting up their bodies before disposing of the remains in a drain outside his house.

Forensic experts examining the first set of 17 corpses said the bodies had been sliced precisely and systematically. The report said 11 of the victims were young girls. The case has exposed the dark underbelly of life in the teeming Indian capital. Noida is one of Delhi's fastest-growing suburbs, a place that is attracting much of the IT investment pour-ing into the country, and the proposed site of what will be the world's tallest building.

But the reality is that as Pandher and Kohli went about the gruesome business of raping and murdering, the pleas of parents whose children had gone missing were treated with contempt by the police. The parents say they went to police dozens of times, but they did nothing. The victims were children of a lesser god-- the children of dirt-poor people with neither money nor influence. The parents believe that had the police acted on the first com-plaints, many lives could have been saved.

Reacting to the growing public anger, authorities in Uttar Pradesh have already sacked six of the local police and suspended three others. Sunil Biswas, a rickshaw puller from West Bengal, who tried to file a complaint about his missing 10-year-old daughter in April of last year, said: "Policemen were reluctant to take the complaint and told us: 'Why do you produce children if you can-not take care of them?’”

Pandher, now in his late 50s, grew up in an affluent family and built a fortune running a trucking company. He has friends in high places and is well-connected to a number of leading Punjabi politicians in India's dominant Congress party. He is the sort of person who can get away with murder.

But perhaps not this time. Police have charged Pandher and Kohli with offenses ranging from kidnapping to rape and murder. Only the number of victims is in doubt, according to police. Both men are currently under interrogation, and Kohli has reportedly admitted enticing the children into the house, using lollipops as bait. Kohli admits his complicity, according to police, but says he was only obeying his master's orders. Under interrogation, Pandher gives little away. But investigators remain sure of their case.