Annie Elise (Podcast Host) (18:13)
Now Muninder also had a domestic worker, otherwise here in the States known as, you know, a housekeeper or a house manager. And this was a man in his 30s named Surinder Kohli. Sarinder was married, had two children, managed all of the household chores and he handled maintenance, looked after the house whenever Moninder was away. And he was just kind of like the house manager of sorts, he was the eyes and ears of everything and just managed all of the chores. He was hired in early 2004 and he wasn't a very talkative person, but he was regularly seen outside of the house just, just sweeping the sidewalks, taking out the trash, and, you know, running errands. So to most people, the two men were unassuming, they were quiet, they were familiar to the neighborhood, but overall pretty ordinary. However, these were also the two men that Rachna's father had talked to that day out front of the house. The ones that he said gave him a weird vibe that he felt like they were trying to get away from the conversation as quickly as possible. Now, as far fetched as it sounded, the rumor that somebody had actually seen body parts outside of Moninder's home, it really was more than anything else that the families had to go on. That was the only real lead that they had. And at that point they were willing to follow up on just about anything. So on the morning of December 29, 2006, the two fathers and SC Mishra decided that they were going to go check out that area for themselves, do their own little investigation. Now, in this part of Noida, the storm drains aren't like what you might be picturing. They weren't like the typical underground covered sewer system like we have in the U.S. kind of, you know, from that movie it with the clown, how it's like that storm drain and everything's below. That's not how it is. Instead, these drains are very long. They are like open trenches that run alongside the roads. They collect runoff, trash, food, waste, and in many places they hadn't been cleaned in months. So when the group reached the section of drain that was right outside of Moninder's house, the smell, the odor, it hit them almost immediately. The water was barely moving. There was garbage everywhere. And while there was, yes, a huge amount of trash, the odor was still very off. Something didn't quite smell like this was just your typical garbage. Even like New York City where it's hot garbage in the street, something was stronger here. So the three men started searching right away. They leaned over the edge of this drain, scanning the surface, kind of looking for anything unusual. And after about 30 minutes, they found something. One of the fathers spotted a severed hand floating in the water. It was also partially decomposed and it was tangled inside all of that garbage that had been collected on top of the drain. And this hand, it was very small in size. It looked like the size of a Hand that belonged to a child. So this was a horrifying discovery. They stopped searching and immediately called the police, hoping that now, finally, this. It would be enough for them to take things seriously. And sure enough, a short time later, officers arrived. The same officers that these families had been begging for help from for years. But by the time the police got there, residents from both Noida and Nytari had all gathered around the drain, and they were all digging through the trash collectively. And while they were doing that, they found more body parts. Hands, arms, skulls, bone fragments, even pieces of clothing, which it all seems crazy, right? Because given how many children had gone missing and nobody had noticed any of this stuff before, which I will get into that in just a moment. Don't worry. So the police roped off the area, and then they took over the search. Yet that, of course, didn't stop people from surrounding the area, watching, trying to see what else the police would uncover. The search went on for the next few days, and as time went on, the surrounding crowd just grew angrier and angrier. Most of the crowd consisted of residents from nitari, people who knew that for the past few years, they had been telling the police about all of these missing children, Constantly begging for help, asking for an investigation, telling them something was wrong, and it just was being completely ignored. So as they were witnessing the police just pulling out more and more body parts out of this drain, they just grew even more furious, wondering if all of this could have been prevented. People even started verbally harassing the investigators, even throwing stones at them. Many of them also brought photos of their children or descriptions of the clothing that they were last seen in, trying to see if these bodies that were being found matched their children, which can you imagine that for a moment, witnessing for days on end, this drain, this open, garbage collected drain just being sifted through, and you'd finding body parts and clothing and just standing there as a parent, wondering where your missing child is, praying for answers, but also praying that they don't pull out your child's shirt or your child's head or your child's little arm. And it has to be a true living nightmare. I cannot even imagine what goes through somebody's mind during those moments now, because they were all just so combative and so angry and so furious. It got bad enough that the police had to come and try and contain all of them, but this, of course, just made the onlookers even angrier. So much so that fights started breaking out. Eventually, though, the police were able to contain the crowd and they were able to successfully block off the area, and they continued their investigation, continued sifting through this drain. Now, all of the body parts that were recovered were from the drain directly in front of Moninder's home. And that naturally put a lot of attention on him. And also the person who worked there full time with him, his domestic worker, house manager, surrender. And as soon as the public learned where these remains had been found, rumors started building around these two men. Some said that surrender had always been a little bit strange. He kept to himself, didn't really interact with neighbors much, but they said that when he did interact, it was usually with kids. People said that the few times that they did see him talk, he was trying to give children candy as they walked past the home. Now, at the time, people didn't really think much of it. Maybe he was just being friendly. It didn't really seem that unusual. But Hindsight is always 2020, and now with body parts being pulled out of the drain just steps away from where he stood every single day, it didn't seem so harmless anymore. It seemed disturbing. And of course, people were also reexamining the image they had of Moninder at this point. Like I mentioned earlier, he was a wealthy, very successful businessman. He came from a good family. He led this life of true luxury. He owned multiple homes and was always in and out of Noida often. And neighbors initially thought of him as quiet, polite. He wasn't particularly social. But when he did interact with people in the neighborhood, he always gave off this kind of grandfatherly type of vibe. But now, after the discovery of the drain, rumors of a darker side to him started swirling throughout the city. Some locals said that he had another side to him that wasn't so innocent. He was rumored to hire sex workers regularly. He was described as a womanizer. And later on, the police even came out with a statement saying that it was their investigation into a missing sex worker that led them to the discovery of the body parts in that drainage. Which I kind of find that interesting, considering it was these other men who went on their own, like, vigilante kind of search, doing their own investigation. But now they were trying to take credit for it, saying that it was their investigation that led them there. But I digress. Just again, trying to give some context as to his background and who he may have been. And let's talk about that investigation and that alleged sex worker. In May of 2006, a young woman named Payal had gone missing. She was in her 20s, and she often spent time in the noida neighborhood, just looking for work. And on May 7, Payal's brother had told her about a potential job opportunity, one at Moninder's home. So that morning, Peyao left to go meet somebody about the job. But the thing was, she never came back. And even though Peyao was technically an adult, she lived at home. So it was very unusual for her to not come home at night. So her family, of course, immediately became concerned. They tried calling Moninder, but it took a while to even get in contact with him. And when they finally did, he said he wasn't in town, that he hadn't even been in town. He had no idea what they were even talking about. Yet he did tell Payal's father that he would talk to surrender. He would check with him and see if he knew anything about it. He even said to call him back the next day, that he would loop him in and give him any information that he learned. But then when Payal's father called him back the following day, Moninder's phone had been turned off and nobody could ever get in contact with him after that. So Payal's family went to the police like so many of these families did. And at first they didn't launch any type of formal investigation, just like they had done with the other families. They just told Payal's family that she had probably run off with a boy. And they really doubled down on this. They claimed that they knew for a fact that Payal ran off to Mumbai, got married and was now happily living a new life all voluntarily. One officer reportedly even went so far as to spread rumors all throughout the town that Payal was fine, that she had no interest in returning. Yet Payal's father refused to accept that. He kept pressuring the police, even showing up at a senior officer's home and causing a huge scene, just trying to do anything to get attention. Desperate. And eventually his persistence paid off. In June of 2006, the police finally agreed to file a formal missing persons report. I mean, they didn't investigate any further still, but at least now there was something on record, there was something documented, but still that wasn't enough for Payal's family and her father. So he took his fight to court and he ended up getting a judge to order the police to investigate. Yet even then they still pushed back, accusing him of making all of this up just as a means to get money. So then Payal's father continued to search on his own. He went to Noida nearly every single day. And then finally, he did meet someone who would give him some answers. A rickshaw driver came forward and said he saw Payal on May 7, the day that she disappeared. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term rickshaw, it's similar to what we may in New York call like a pedicab or like a three wheel cart where you can transport either goods or people and somebody's moving the cart either on by a bicycle or on their own feet, just kind of something like that. So he said that he saw her entering Monitor's home, but that he never saw her leave. He even gave an exact description of the clothing that she was last seen in. And when her father showed the rickshaw driver a picture of Payal, he confirmed that was the girl that he had seen. It wasn't until October of 2006, five months after Payol went missing, that the police really finally started looking into her case. Her phone had been missing this whole time as well. And the police ended up discovering that her SIM card had been deactivated. Now, even though the SIM card had been deactivated, they were able to track down the device itself. And interestingly enough, the person who they saw now using this phone claimed that somebody from Moninder's house had sold that device to him. So according to the police, that discovery was the turning point. They said that this connection to Moninder's home is what led them to begin searching that surrounding area, including that drain out front where all of those body parts and remains were eventually found. So just to give a little bit of context, people were really, really angry with the police for their lack of action over all of these missing children. Yet the police, possibly feeling that they needed to protect their image and their careers, just came back and combated that with like, no, we haven't been ignoring anybody's concerns. We have been looking into some of these missing children. There just wasn't enough evidence to ever suggest that something bad happened to them. So because of that, we didn't investigate any further. The police even went so far as saying that the version of events that are being told by these families, you know, them going on their own, searching these drains, discovering the remains for themselves, that that wasn't true. They insisted that it was their own work that brought them to the scene and they just kind of brushed off the community's versions of events as exaggerated, emotional and driven and fueled by public anger. So after this discovery was made, Moninder and Sarinder were both brought in for questioning. This was on December 26th and 27th of 2006 and as they were taken away for questioning from Monnder's home, the crowd outside just attacked them. Meanwhile, the police extended their search and in doing that they then discovered even more human remains and these remains had been tucked away inside plastic bags and then placed on the property and itself.
