'British mother' sentenced to death in India for murdering her husband
Who. Ramandeep Kaur Mann, 38, is the first British woman sentenced to death in India after slitting her husband's throat with the help of her lover seven years ago.
That. She settled in the UK and married Sukhjeet Singh, who ran a pizzeria in south London and became a leader of the Sikh community in Derby, before murdering him while they were on holiday.
Because. One of his sons was a witness to the murder, whose testimony led to his conviction.
He ran a pizzeria in south London before moving to Derby, where he was a local leader of the Sikh community.. She was a graphic design student and manager of an Argos chain store.. They married and settled in the UK in 2005, had two British children and often spent holidays in India, where the unthinkable happened seven years ago…
He, Sukhjeet Singh, 34, was found dead in Shahjahanpur, having his throat slit with a knife in his own bed.. She, Ramandeep Kaur Mann, 38, was arrested on suspicion of murder along with her lover Gurpreet Singh (her husband's childhood friend). The two went on trial this week and she has become the first British mother sentenced to death in India.
The news has caused a stir in the United Kingdom and has prompted the intervention of the Foreign Office, which has contacted the Indian authorities and provided legal support to the British citizen in an unprecedented case.. His sister, Kalbir Mann, publicly defended his innocence, stating that Ramandeep is innocent, that he was happy in his marriage “for love and not arranged” and that he has been framed by third parties “in a nightmare” since the tragic family vacation.
During the trial, it emerged, however, that Ramandeep had asked her husband for a divorce and had had an extramarital relationship with Gurpreet Singh for more than a year, and they had even gone on vacation together to Dubai.
The most chilling moment of the trial came when prosecutor Shripal Varma revealed the testimony of one of the couple's children, Arjun, who claimed that his mother and her lover killed his father while he was sleeping.. “The son woke up when he heard noise in the room and saw his mother sitting on his father's body and trying to suffocate him with a pillow,” said the prosecutor, who added that the mother put sedatives in her husband's dinner to ensure that he fell asleep, while allowing his lover entry into the house.
According to Varma, the mother tried to sedate the entire family, but her nine-year-old son did not eat the dinner and was therefore able to wake up and witness the murder: “The boy could see Gurpreet hitting his father twice with a hammer in the head and how, when he saw that he was alive, he took out a knife from his pocket with which his mother cut his throat.
Justice Pankaj Kumar Srivastava was stumped by the story. When issuing the verdict he not only took into account the cold-blooded murder, but also “the exterminated childhood” of his children. The mother was sentenced to death and the lover and accomplice, to life imprisonment.
Sukhjeet's mother bluntly expressed her satisfaction with the sentence: “My prayers have been answered. I have gotten what I wanted from this court. Ramandeep deserves the death penalty.”
The Times of India reported on the stir that the case has also created in Ramandeep's country of origin. Since India's independence in 1947, only one woman had been sentenced to death in 2021: Shabnam Ali, guilty of the murder of seven relatives.
Death sentences in India are carried out by hanging, but are often commuted to life imprisonment in the final proceedings. The last executions of four men, convicted of rape and murder, occurred in 2020.