Sector 36 real story: Real-life Chumki Ghosh whose case led the cops to Nithari killings accused Surinder Koli, Moninder Singh Pandher

In May 2006, a woman named Payal went missing under suspicious circumstances. As per the book, Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers by Anirban Bhattacharya, published by Penguin Random House India, Payal told her father Nand Lal that she was going to Pandher’s house to help with domestic chores. When she did not return until 7 pm, he went to check at the house where Surinder Koli, Pandher’s house help, told Nand Lal that Payal hadn’t been there. When Nand Lal requested to speak to the boss, Koli said that Pandher was in Chandigarh.

ALSO READ | Sector 36: Does Vikrant Massey’s exploitative Netflix movie really expect us to nod in agreement with a serial killer?

“Next day, I went to the police station. I told them that she had gone to meet Koli at D-5. They paid no attention to me. I kept going to the police station. On the fourth day, they told me that my daughter was a characterless woman and mocked me. They told me to run away from the police station and never come back to bother them,” he is quoted in the book. Nand Lal visited the house every single day over the next month and when he finally met Moninder, he was told that Payal never came to his house.

In the film Sector 36, events unfold in a similar manner as Chumki’s father tries to file a complaint at the police station with Deepak Dobriyal’s character for his missing daughter but is initially dismissed.

It wasn’t until October 2006 that an FIR was registered, and that too only after intervention by a senior judicial official. When Payal’s phone records were investigated, it was found that she had spoken to Pandher days before she went missing. When the police checked his alibi, it was found that Pandher was indeed in Chandigarh for his father’s final rites. After aggressive questioning by Vinod Pandey, an investigating officer on the case, Pandher reportedly said that he knew Payal as a sex worker and had paid her Rs 2500. He also claimed that Nand Lal would make his daughter work as a sex worker, and Nand Lal admitted to the same.

Payal’s phone was eventually tracked by the cybercrime department. Arun Kumar, CBI joint director, claimed Koli used Payal’s phone after killing her. He told PTI that he used her phone for personal use with a new SIM card. The phone was eventually found in the hands of a rickshaw-vala. When the cops arrested Koli, he confessed to killing Payal. He also admitted, in front of Pandey, that he dismembered her body and threw the pieces, along with her belongings, in the drain behind the house. When asked why he killed her, Koli said that he did so because she refused to have sex with him, and he killed her in a fit of rage.

It seems like the scene in the film where Vikrant’s character confesses to his crimes in front of Deepak’s cop character was loosely based on this interrogation between Pandey and Koli. In the film, the police cracks open the case only after this confession by Koli.