11 years on,murdered NRI’s family waits for justice

Surjit’s case has prompted increased discussion about not only honour killings but also murders of members of the UK’s South Asian population abroad. Twenty-seven-year-old Surjit was trapped in an unhappy marriage and prior to her murder become more vociferous in her demand for a divorce leading to her tragic end. It was years later that Sarabjeet Kaur,the younger daughter-in-law of the Athwal family,revealed how the conspiracy to kill Surjit was hatched at a family meeting in west London,providing the British police with the missing link to their long chain of enquiries.

British authorities mounted criminal prosecution into the murder in 2007 and a dramatic 13-week trial resulted in a guilty verdict of not just conspiracy to murder but actual murder against both Surjit’s husband Sukhdev Athwal and mother-in-law Bachan Kaur. “It is a devastating indictment of the institutional failure of Indian justice that a heinous crime committed against a British national like Surjit in Indian jurisdiction remains still uninvestigated and unprosecuted 11 years on.This is a telling exposure of poor policing,poor attitudes,poor laws,poor machinery and complete inaction and neglect from the highest levels of the Indian government,” says Jagdeesh Singh. “It had taken us nine years to get justice in British courts. How many years will it take to get justice in the Indian courts?” he says.

Surjit’s case is now widely quoted and is a major case study in a UK police national conference being held on September 24-25,2009 to discuss ‘honour crimes’ Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll,who led the investigation into Surjit’s case,and travelled out to Punjab to meet senior Punjab Police chiefs,will speak about the ‘international dimension’ to honour killings exposed by this ground-breaking case.

Later this year,Channel 4 is showing a major documentary on Surjit’s case,called Killer in the Family.