{{BOLD}}A Convenient Villain, Part 2{{/BOLD}}[[BR]]How the Nithari serial murder case exposed the judiciary’s inconsistencies and the dangers of letting “collective conscience” dictate death penalties.

{{BOLD}}A Convenient Villain, Part 1{{/BOLD}}[[BR]]A poor Dalit domestic worker was cast as a psychopathic, perverted cannibal killer in the Nithari serial murders. The Collective revisits the “botched up” investigation that created a convenient villain to quell public outrage.

Some stories refuse to fade. Some must be resurrected. Why we felt the story of the Nithari killings needed to be retold.

Land and houses in the villages are cracking, like in the sinking town of Joshimath, due to rampant mining. We reveal a court-commissioned report that found state complicity in illegal mining and misuse of funds meant for welfare of mining affected areas

हितों के टकराव को नजरअंदाज करते हुए, भाजपा सरकार ने कर वसूलने वाली निजी कंपनियों को इकोलॉजिकल रूप से संवेदनशील हिमालयी राज्य में नदियों में खनन करने के लिए भी प्रोत्साहित किया है। यह सब आपदाओं को रोकने के नाम पर किया जा रहा है।

Ignoring the conflict of interest, the BJP government has encouraged tax-collecting private companies to also mine the rivers in the ecologically-fragile Himalayan state. All done in the name of preventing disasters.

पतंजलि ने योग और आयुर्वेद को बढ़ावा देने के लिए एक चैरिटेबल संस्था की स्थापना की। इसने सालों तक कोई चैरिटी कार्य नहीं किया। इसके बजाय इसका इस्तेमाल बढ़ते कारोबार को मजबूत करने के लिए किया गया।

Patanjali set up a charitable entity to promote yoga and ayurveda. For years no charity work was undertaken. Instead it was used to consolidate the expanding business.

आयकर विभाग ने डोनर्स से नकद, चेक या किसी भी अन्य माध्यम से राजनैतिक दलों को दिए गए हर डोनेशन का विवरण देने को कहा है। प्रवर्तन एजेंसियों के पास जल्द ही यह डेटा होगा, लेकिन अंधेरे में रहेंगे नागरिक।

The Income Tax department has asked donors to divulge details of all contributions made to political parties through cash, cheque, or any other mode. Enforcement agencies will soon have this data, but the citizens will stay in the dark.

नियामक एजेंसी प्रदूषण नियंत्रण बोर्ड को मुख्यमंत्री की मांग पर एक सेवा-प्रदाता बना दिया गया। जिससे उद्योगों को मंजूरी देने के लिए अधिकारियों पर अवास्तविक समयसीमा का दबाव पड़ा वहीं इससे चूकने पर उनके खिलाफ दंडात्मक कार्रवाई भी की गई।

On Chief Minister’s demand, the pollution control board, a regulatory agency, was turned into a service provider. The move imposed unrealistic deadlines in granting approvals to industry, coupled with penal action on officials missing the tight deadlines.

हरियाणा सरकार ने अरावली की वनभूमि के संरक्षण के कई कानूनी रास्ते बंद किए। इससे पतंजलि की शेल कंपनियों को इनकी खरीद-फरोख्त करके भारी मुनाफा कमाने का अवसर मिला।

पतंजलि समूह ने संदिग्ध फर्जी कंपनियों का एक जाल बिछाया, जिसके ज़रिए पैसे का हेर-फेर करके अरावली में वनभूमि खरीद कर फिर उसे रियल एस्टेट के रूप में बेचा गया।

Haryana govt blocked multiple legal routes to protect Aravalli's forest lands. This allowed Patanjali's shell companies to earn super-profits by trading in them

Patanjali Group employed a web of dubious shell companies that funnelled money to buy Aravalli forestland and sell it as real estate.

1996 में SC ने केंद्र और राज्यों से कहा कि भारत की सभी वनों की पहचान कर उन्हें संरक्षित किया जाए। 27 साल गुजरने के बावजूद उन्होंने यह काम पूरा नहीं किया। अब, केंद्र के नए वन कानून ने उन वनों के संरक्षण को खत्म कर दिया है जिन्हें कागजों पर मान्यता प्राप्त नहीं है।

In 1996, the Supreme Court asked the Union government and states to identify and protect all of India’s forests. For 27 years, they did not complete the job. Now, the Centre’s new forest law has removed protection for forests not recognised on paper.

दस्तावेज़ों से पता चलता है कि मोदी सरकार ने जंगलों को व्यावसायिक पौधारोपण के लिए खोलने की योजना पर काम कार्यभार संभालने के तुरंत बाद ही शुरू कर दिया था। हालाँकि इसे आदिवासी अधिकारों और जंगलों को नुकसान पहुँचाने के लिए विरोध का सामना करना पड़ा, लेकिन हाल ही में वन (संरक्षण) अधिनियम संशोधन के माध्यम से यह योजना सफल हुई।

Modi govt's dogged pursuit of a plan to open forests for commercial plantation began shortly after taking office, documents show. Though it faced pushback for hurting tribal rights and forests, the plan reached a fruition through the recent Forest (Conservation)Act amendment.

केंद्र सरकार ने नई वन नीति लाने का अपना वादा नहीं निभाया। यह वादा निभाने की बजाए वन संरक्षण कानूनों में ऐसा बदलाव किया जैसा वह चाहती थी।

Centre abandoned promise of a new forest policy. Instead chose to cut the laws on conservation down to the size it desired.

Before the onset of monsoon, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami personally lobbied with the Centre to keep mining four rivers. The Centre, ruled by his fellow partymen, fulfilled his demand in breach of critical environmental safeguards.

Will India allow industries to sell carbon credits in the international market at a cost to the country? The upcoming national carbon market postpones answering this fundamental question.

Police and Administration dismiss threats asking Muslims of Purola town to leave as media hype, but The Collective finds in plain sight leaders targeting Muslims, and maps rising hate crimes that are turning the state into a communal tinderbox

In December 2006, the discovery of over a dozen skulls and bones of women and children in Nithari village shocked the nation. Once an unremarkable corner of Noida, Nithari soon became a chilling symbol of horror.[[BR]][[BR]]Surendra Koli, a poor Dalit domestic worker, was portrayed as the psychopathic, perverse cannibal responsible for the Nithari serial murders. This narrative, however, has been called into question because of the flawed investigation that constructed a convenient villain to pacify public outrage.[[BR]][[BR]]Our examination of over 3,000 pages of court documents reveals the inconsistencies that defined Koli’s life and legal battles, the inconsistencies of the judicial system as well as a broken redressal mechanism that delayed his mercy petition.

In the past few years, at least half a dozen states have adopted profiling software to predict the eligibility of citizens for welfare schemes. These algorithms have wrongly declared the alive as dead, the poor as well-off, the disabled as able-bodied, robbing thousands of subsidised food, old-age pension, disability pension, widow pensions, and other welfare benefits for the poor. An investigation into how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at the cost of citizens. With support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

Hidden in plain sight, the Patanjali business empire is functioning as a dubious real-estate agency buying and selling forested lands in the fragile Aravalli mountain range through a web of shell companies.

This investigative series exposes how the Modi government favoured commercial interests over forest conservation and indigenous rights while abandoning the long-delayed National Forest Policy. Just after taking office, it aimed to open forests for private plantations, culminating in the 2023 amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act. These changes prioritize profit over biodiversity, granting private businesses access to India's forests. The amendment limits protection to recognized forests, endangering large swathes of potential unofficial forestland. These investigations reveal a troubling pattern of forest exploitation, corporate interests, and indigenous rights neglect.

Union government asks two prominent nonprofits to quit seeking donations in areas where the government runs schemes.

Internal files of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change reveal it had been planning to weaken tribal rights over forests since 2019. Modi government’s new Forest Conservation Rules made it easier for industries to grab their traditional homelands.

Vedanta’s pig iron industry in Goa got clearance to expand despite being caught emitting dangerous substance for more than a decade. It went to great lengths to dodge environmental laws and avoid paying for pollution mitigation efforts.

The move could stop millions of poor children without Aadhaar from having healthy meal, and violates a Supreme Court order that no subsidy or service may be denied to children for want of Aadhaar

The Union government used a flawed set of data to mask the gloomier death count calculated by the UN body, and ignored a robust number thrown up by another of its own survey. The data was so unreliable that 20 of the 36 states and Union territories saw more registered deaths than what the government claims died.

Former J&K BJP legislator Vikram Randhawa accused BJP's Union minister Jitendra Singh of profiting from corruption in Jammu's mining department after being being slapped with Rs 96 lakh penalty for illegal river mining. The accusations were withdrawn and guns holstered. But penalty documents and inquiry committee reports reveal how Jammu's mining department abandoned penalties worth Rs 6.68 crore on stone crushers operating illegally around Tawi and how miners had it easy.

Through death register data obtained from across the country, The Reporters’ Collective estimates that in the pandemic 3,59,496 more people died than in a normal year in just 3 states where officially only 28,609 died of Covid. Experts fear relatives of thousands of Covid-19 victims will be excluded from compensation due to lack of medical records, poor testing and red-tape despite the Centre initiating compensation procedure on the instructions of the Supreme Court.

Data from thousands of pages of death registers maintained by municipalities in Gujarat show an excess death count of 16,892 for just 6% of the state's population during the pandemic. When projected across the state, the figure zooms to a staggering 281,000.

Under its commercial coal mining auctions, the Modi govt has sold off at least two coal blocks for rates cheaper than their 2015 prices. As a result Chhattisgarh will end up losing Rs 900 crore every year and over Rs 24,000 crore over decades.

Haryana used the state’s Family ID database and algorithms to identify genuine beneficiaries of welfare schemes. The database wrongly listed thousands of citizens as dead. Result: They lost their pensions. The Collective’s Tapasya travelled to Haryana to understand how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at a cost to citizens. She writes along with Kumar Sambhav and Divij Joshi. The story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

Telangana used an algorithm to build 360-degree profiles of citizens and decide whether they were eligible for state's welfare. The profiles were faulty. As a result, subsidised food was denied to thousands of poor. The state government knew of the blunder, but did not fix it. The Collective’s member Tapasya travelled to the state to understand how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at the cost of citizens. They report along with Kumar Sambhav and Divij Joshi. The story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.