Who is Surinder Koli, the accused in the 2006 Nithari serial killings, who inspired Vikrant Massey starrer Netflix’s Sector 36, walks out of jail after acquittal

The accused in the 2005–06 Nithari killings, Surendra Koli, was released from Gautam Budhh Nagar’s Luksar Jail after the Supreme Court acquitted him in the last of the 13 cases pertaining to the crime.

“This case exposes the deep fissures in our criminal justice. It reveals how easy it is to fabricate evidence and falsely implicate a poor man and numb judicial scrutiny by making sensational claims of cannibalism. Koli was almost executed twice,” said Koli’s lawyer Payoshi Roy.

“Had he been executed we would have never learnt the truth of his innocence. This judgment should make us rethink the death penalty in India and how marginalized and impoverished people are treated within the criminal justice system,” he added.

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Netflix original movie, Sector 36, is based on Surender Koli’s crime

The plot of the Netflix original movie,  _Sector 36_, is based on the Nithari Killings case in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, which happened in 2006. Names of the people mentioned in the film have been changed to protect identities. The movie, directed by Aditya Nimbalkar and written by Bodhayan Roychaudhury, features Vikrant Massey in the lead role and Deepak Dobriyal as Inspector Ram Charan Pandey.

Nithari killings case

In Nithari village which is situated right in the middle of Noida city in Uttar Pradesh about 20km from Delhi, this heinous crime happened.

The disappearance of young women and children haunted Nithari families for almost two years from 2005 through 2006.  According to reports published in Lifestyle Asia, which states that Jhabbu Lal and Pappu Lal, two inhabitants of Nithari, found human remains near a water tank behind a certain house (more on that later). They claimed the remains were of the children who had mysteriously vanished from the village. Apparently, many Nithari residents had reported the disappearances of their children many times earlier but were ignored by local law enforcement officials.

Produced by Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films and Jio Studios, the film traces the story of a once-complacent police inspector who is on the heels of a devious serial killer when justice becomes personal as several children go missing from a basti (slum) in Netflix’s Sector 36. Inspired by true events, Sector 36 is directed by debutante Aditya Nimbalkar.