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NRI arrested in Britain for
wife’s ‘murder’ in Punjab
WSN Network
LONDON/LUDHIANA:
The British Police seem to have scored where the Punjab Police
failed — to solve a crime committed under its jurisdiction. Manjit
Kaur Kular, 41, a British citizen, had died in Punjab in November
2007. While the Punjab Police called it a car accident, the British
Police have charged Manjit’s husband Jagpaljeet Singh Kular, 41,
with hatching a conspiracy to kill his wife and arrested him.
Though Punjab
Police had closed the case after terming it as a car accident, the
Scotland Yard pursued it and arrested Kular on the murder charge.
A Scotland Yard
spokesman said Jaglapljeet, a Berkley Avenue Cranford Middlesex
builder, had been remanded in custody at Sutton Magistrate’s Court.
He would appear at the Old Bailey in October this year. A trial
could be held in the UK for a crime committed abroad when both
suspect and victim are British citizens.
Rajwinder Kaur,
the sister-in-law of the deceased, said, “Jagpaljeet had married
Manjit just to get British citizenship as he had been living
illegally in England. Manjit had a good job and had been living in
London
for over 20 years. She had a 12-year-old daughter from her second
marriage whom Jagpaljeet had promised to treat as his own, but soon
after the marriage he began torturing Manjit. As a result, Manjit
sent her daughter to Dalhousie to study.”
Maintaining
Manjit “lived under some kind of fear”, Rajwinder said: “In October
2007, both Manjit and Jagpaljeet had come to
India
and were staying at Bija near Khanna, where Manjit’s in-laws are
based. Before coming to India, Majit had told one of her friends in
London that she feared she would be killed by her husband and that’s
why he was taking her to India. Manjit died on the Diwali night
after allegedly being hit by a car.
Manjit’s family
smelt foul play. “We found Manjit’s body lying by roadside. It had
been lying there all night. What’s more, the body did not bear any
injury marks except that her face had been smashed so badly that
even we could not recognise her,” added Rajwinder.
5
August 2009
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