Surjit Athwal


Surjit Kaur Athwal was a British Indian woman murdered in an honour killing in India in 1998. She was 27 at the time.
According to the Coventry Telegraph this case involved the first conviction, in a British court, of an honour killing committed outside of the UK.

Background

Athwal was born in Coventry, England, and resided in the Foleshill suburb. She married Sukhdave Singh Athwal when she was 16 and he was about 26, in a forced marriage. Sukhdave and his family were Sikh. Surjit, residing with her husband in Hayes, London Borough of Hillingdon, was employed at London Heathrow Airport as a customs agent by HM Customs and Excise, and she had two children.

Crime

After seeking divorce, her mother-in-law, Bachan Kaur Athwal, said that her family would allow a divorce if she agreed to attend two weddings in India; Surjit Kaur decided on 4 December 1998 to travel to India, specifically to Punjab. She never returned to the UK on the scheduled return date, 18 December of that year. Bachan and Sukhdave had in fact conspired to have her murdered in India. The body, deposited in the Ravi River, was never discovered.

Investigation, sentencing and aftermath

Surjit's sister-in-law, Sarbjit Athwal, sought to have the people who conspired to kill Surjit prosecuted. She contacted British authorities in the 1990s, but they took no action. In 2005 British authorities re-opened the murder case and had evidence gathered in India.
English courts convicted Bachan and Sukhdave Athwal of offenses. Bachan was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 20 years; Karen McVeigh of The Guardian stated that Bachan was "one of the oldest women in criminal history to be jailed for life." Sukhdave received a life sentence. 2009 appeals against the convictions failed. social service organisations had custody of Surjit's children.
Surjit's brother, in 2013, was seeking for the Central Bureau of Investigation of India to collect evidence that allows Indian authorities to prosecute the people in India who directly killed Surjit.
Donal McIntyre, a journalist covering the criminal sphere, made a documentary about the case.