Sikh grandmom, son plotted honour killing of wife who had an affair

A 70-year-old Sikh grandmother and her son have been convicted for the murder of the sons wife for having an affair.

London, July 27 : A 70-year-old Sikh grandmother and her son have been convicted for the murder of the son's wife for having an affair.

Surjit Athwal, 27, was lured to India before being strangled and thrown into a river nine years ago. Her body has never been found.

According to The Times, Bachan Athwal and her son Sukhdave, 43, arranged for the mother of two to "disappear off the surface of the earth" because she wanted to end her arranged marriage.

The grey-haired widow wept in the dock as an Old Bailey jury found them guilty of murder and they were led away to begin life sentences.

Asian women's campaigners and Surjit's family hailed the result as a landmark victory to highlight the "honour killing" of Britons overseas.

Jagdeesh Singh, Surjit's brother, said the guilty verdicts were a powerful blow against "the obscene cultural concept of honour and all the repression that comes with it".

Surjit, a Customs officer at Heathrow, had been having an affair with a colleague and had been planning to end her ten-year arranged marriage. The killers, from Hayes, West London, arranged for her to accompany her mother-in-law to the Punjab to attend a series of family weddings in December 1998.

When Surjit failed to return, her husband told her worried relatives and the police that she was a "slag" who had run away with another man in India. But his mother - a grandmother of 16 who claimed to have suffered a stroke near the end of the trial - boasted to other family members that Surjit had been strangled by a male relative and thrown into the River Ravi in the Punjab. She threatened them initially against speaking out, but eventually, witnesses "felt the prick of conscience", Michael Worsley, QC, for the prosecution, said.

The mother and son later elaborated on their false story that Surjit had run away. They attempted to disrupt the Indian investigation by sending forged letters, supposedly from the Metropolitan Police, claiming that the young mother was "terrified of her father because her lifestyle is very modern. . . He is a very violent man".

The two also forged documents transferring the home Surjit co-owned into their names. Sukhdave, a Heathrow bus driver, took out a 100,000 pound life insurance policy on his wife the day she left for India, although this was later cancelled as he realised they would not pay out without a body. He later divorced Surjit in her absence and remarried.

Singh, her brother, said that he was "relieved and exhilarated" by the culmination of his campaign.

ANI