Allahabad, Sep 11 (IANS): The Allahabad High Court Friday found no evidence in one case against Moninder Singh Pandher, the key accused in the sensational 2006 killings of at least 18 young girls and boys in Nithari in Noida.

While the court gave a clean chit to Pandher, who was awarded death sentence by the special trial court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), it upheld the same sentence on his domestic servant Surinder Koli, believed to be an equal partner in the gruesome killings.

The bench comprising Justice Imtiaz Murtaza and Justice K.N.Pandey, however, made it clear that the acquittal was only with respect to the rape and murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar, a maid who had disappeared from Pandher's house about four years ago. The remaining 18 cases against the two accused would continue, the court clarified.

The court gave Pandher a reprieve on his plea that he had been away in Australia at the time Haldar was raped and murdered in the Sector 31 house that belonged him.

Significantly, the CBI had also given Pandher a clean chit after the Uttar Pradesh police handed over the case to the premier investigation agency following much public outcry across the state and Delhi.

Fifty-two-year-old Pandher and Koli, 38, had challenged the death sentence awarded to them on Feb 13 this year by the trial court in Ghaziabad.

The high court, while upholding the death sentence of Koli, who had admitted to have killed the 14-year-old girl, observed that the crime committed by him was "gruesome, heinous and cold-blooded" and "we would not forebear from expressing that the accused Surendra Koli is a menace to the society".

The bench observed: "The depraved and brutish acts of Koli call for only one sentence and that is death sentence. We agree with the reasoning of the sessions judge awarding death sentence and affirm the same award to Koli."

According to the prosecution, Koli was suffering from necrophilia and had even eaten body parts of his victims.

The Nithari killings which shocked the country came to light with the discovery of skeletal remains of children from a drain behind Pandher's bungalow in Nithari in late Dec 2006, leading to the arrest of Pandher and his domestic help Koli.

The conviction in the murder of 14-year-old Haldar, who was one of the 19 victims to be sexually exploited and brutally murdered at Pandher's house at Nithari in Noida, was the first one to be pronounced against the duo.

While Koli was found guilty by the court under various sections of Indian Penal Code for murder and rape, Pandher was convicted on the same charges along with Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy).

However, Friday's reprieve to Pandher has provoked another public outcry. According to reports, thousands of people collected outside Pandher's residence and raised anti-court slogans. A large contingent of the Noida police was later deployed to prevent any violence.