There was something to cheer amidst the pall of gloom in Nithari village when an 8-year-old boy, thought to be one of the victims of the gruesome serial killings, returned home. Vishal had been missing since December 13 from Sector 18 and his parents had taken him for dead after identifying a pair of trousers as belonging to him from the clothes recovered following the discovery of the skeletons from the D-5 residence of Moninder Singh Pandher.

However, Vishal was found by police from Dhankaur nearby and reunited with his family on Tuesday night. "We are very happy that our son is back. We did not have any intention of claiming compensation, we don't want anything else," the boy's father Jai Veer said. "There had been a mistake in identification of the clothes as my son was also wearing the same kind of trousers when he went missing," he said.

District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ajay Chauhan said that no compensation had been paid to the family but a complaint had been registered. Besides lodging an FIR, the family had also filed a complaint at the special camp organised at Nithari after the serial killings became public.