Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli were sentenced to death after being convicted in one of the 2006 serial Nithari rape and murder cases.

Pandher and Koli were on Saturday convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 20-year-old Pinky Sarkar+ .

A special CBI court in Ghaziabad described the case as “rarest of the rare”.

Pandher’s lawyer Devraj Singh said on Saturday his client would appeal against the conviction in a higher court.

“Pandher was never named in the CBI chargesheet in this case and the CBI’s investigation had proved Pandher had left for Dehradun on October 5, 2006, from his Noida office and returned on October 10, which in turn proved that Pandher was not involved in the Pinky Sarkar case,” Singh said.

According to the CBI chargesheet, Koli had confessed to having lured Pinky, who was returning from work, into the house on October 5, 2006, killed her, dismembered her body, and dumped the body parts in a drain in the rear of the house.

Police had discovered 19 skeletons from Pandher’s house in Nithari in Noida on December 29, 2006, reported PTI. Most of the victims were young girls.

Pandher and Koli were charge-sheeted in 16 of the 19 cases, while three were closed for want of evidence.