The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday recovered an axe with which Surendra Koli, an accused in the Nithari killings, allegedly chopped up children and women after strangling them in co-accused Mohinder Singh Pandher's home.

Koli allegedly handed over the axe, which was hidden in a bush outside Pandher's residence at Nithari in Noida, to a CBI team that had taken him to the scene of the grisly killings, official sources said.

Pandher and Koli allegedly killed at least 15 women and children in Nithari. The probe into the serial killings has been taken over by the CBI.