Describing Moninder Singh Pandher as "innocent", family members of the businessman accused media of influencing a special CBI court's verdict which found entrepreneur and his servant Surinder Koli guilty in the murder and rape of a 14-year-old girl.

"He is innocent," Pandher's wife Devender Kaur said rubbishing media reports which claimed that they were divorced.
Pandher's family blamed Koli for the rape and murder of Rimpa Halder, one of the victims of infamous Nithari killings in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi [Images].

"We never suspected his intentions and activities. I lived in that house (D-5 sector 31) from 2000 to 2005, but I could never suspect what all Koli has been doing. The house was always spic and span. Koli was a clever man and he knows what to say and what not to," Kaur said.

Pandher's 25-year-old son Karandeep Singh, who was upset over the verdict's outcome, sarcastically thanked media for the court's judgment that declared his father guilty along with Koli in the rape and murder of Halder.

"I would rather wish that my father is awarded a capital punishment. There are 19 other cases which will be fought on the same evidence and my father will be doomed in the jail for his entire life," he said.