LONDON, Sept 19: A British judge jailed a grandmother for life on Wednesday for ordering the execution of her daughter-in-law in India after discovering she was having an affair with a married man.

The judge at London’s Central Criminal Court told 70-year-old Bachan Athwal, who was convicted in July of the murder of Surjit Athwal, that she must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison before she is eligible for release.

Surjit, a customs officer at London’s main Heathrow airport, never returned from a trip with Bachan to a family wedding in India in December 1998.

Her mother-in-law later boasted she had arranged for Surjit to disappear “off the surface of the earth” by getting a relative to strangle her and throw her body into a river in the Punjab.

The court was told that Bachan claimed Surjit had run off with her lover, a work colleague, leaving behind her two young children. But frightened relatives eventually came forward to police and gave statements, allowing detectives to arrest Bachan and her son, Surjit’s husband, Sukhdave, 43.

He was also found guilty of murder and jailed for life on Wednesday. Judge Giles Forrester imposed a minimum 27-year term. He described the premeditated killing as a “heinous crime characterised by great wickedness.” “The pair of you decided that the so-called honour of your family members was worth more than the life of this young woman,” he added.

“You, Bachan, were head of that family. I have no doubt you exercised a controlling influence over other family members.”

Bachan, said to be a dominant matriarchal figure in the Sikh family, was said to have opposed Surjit’s demand for a divorce, saying it would happen “over (her) dead body” and disgrace the family, prosecutors said.

She also opposed her westernised dress and outgoing personality, witnesses said.

Sukhdave, who took out a $205,000 insurance policy on the day his wife left for India, said Surjit had called him to say she had left him and was staying in India with a new lover.

Mother and son also faked a document transferring ownership of the home Surjit part-owned into their names. Sukhdave later divorced his wife in her absence, claiming she deserted him, and then remarried.

In a victim impact statement read to court, Surjit’s brother Jagdeesh Singh said his sister suffered the “venomous anger” of the Athwals, who set about destroying her reputation and eliminating all trace of her existence.

His sister hoped to get out of a “tragic marriage” but was punished for standing up to the “suffocating control” of the Athwals who denied her any rights, he said.—AFP