Allahabad/Noida, Sep 11 - Moninder Singh Pandher, a businessman and key accused in the brutal killings of at least 18 young girls and boys in Nithari in Noida, was Friday acquitted by the Allahabad High court in the rape and murder of a teenager. His family was happy with the ruling, but the victim's parents said they would move the Supreme Court.

While the court gave a clean chit to Pandher, who was awarded death sentence by the special trial court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), it upheld the same sentence on his domestic servant Surinder Koli, allegedly an equal partner in the gruesome killings that came to light in 2006 and shocked the nation.

The bench of Justice Imtiaz Murtaza and Justice K.N. Pandey made it clear that Pandher's acquittal was only with respect to the rape and murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar, a maid who had disappeared from his house about four years ago. The remaining 18 cases against Pandher and his servant would continue, the court clarified.

The court gave Pandher a reprieve on his plea that he was away in Australia when Haldar was raped and murdered in the Noida Sector 31 house that belonged him.

Significantly, the CBI had also given Pandher a clean chit after the Uttar Pradesh police handed over the case to the agency.

The judgment brought relief for Pandher's family. His son Karandeep Pandher said: 'I am very happy. Finally, justice has prevailed. An innocent man has been acquitted.'

'It is a happy day. We will celebrate the day my father is out,' he told IANS.

However, Rimpa Haldar's mother Dolly Haldar was among the hundreds of people who stood outside Pandher's D-45 bungalow in Nithari in Noida's Sector 31 and shouted slogans against the police and the CBI.