Sikh lady killed for refusing marriage?

A court heard that Anita Gindha, 22, may have been killed because she eloped and refused an arranged marriage.

A pregnant Sikh woman may have been killed because she eloped and refused an arranged marriage, a court heard.

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Anita Gindha, 22, was strangled to death in front of her 19-month-old son, by a 65-year-old man in February 2003.

She was found dead by her husband Rahl, a Kashmiri, when he returned home from work in the evening. Gindha was to give birth to a girl in a fortnight's time.

Palwinder Dhillon, a Sikh elder allegedly shaved off his long white beard and removed his orange turban and traditional salwar kurta after committing the murder. A clump of hair from his beard was found in the victim's home in Manor Park, East London. The Old Baily was told that scientists believed there was only a one in a billion chance that the hair was not from Dhillon. He was found in Walsall in August 2003.

Gindha and Rahl married in 2000 in a gurudwara in Woverhampton, after she fled her family home in Glasgow. Prosecutor William Boyce told the court that Anita ran away to marry and "it was a big step. Her family in Scotland were angry because they had intended she should enter an arranged marriage. She was fearful that some of her family might be annoyed with her and that they might track her down and kill her". Finally her mother and stepfather did not object to the marriage. But her aunt and uncle continued to shun her. Rahl received threatening phone calls from relatives.

Boyce told the jury that the motive for the killing remained "uncertain" but jewellery had been stolen from the flat. He also said that Dhillon "might have been recruited by the family if there was still some animosity" towards Anita for turning down an arranged marriage and marrying for love. Dhillon knew Rahl, a building foreman, through work. Problems developed between the two after Rahl refused Dhillon work.

On the day of the killing, the court was told, a neighbour heard a long scream at about 10.50 am, almost two hours after Rahl left for work. The neighbour also heard the baby crying and the screaming continued for about 10 minutes. Boyce said: "Anita had been strangled using a ligature while still in her nightclothes."

Rahl returned home only at 6.30 pm to find his son weeping. He said: "My son was standing and crying by her head. He was just crying and saying 'Mummy'."

He found his wife lying on the floor. "I thought she was unconscious" but after noticing marks around her neck and swelling around her face he dialled 999.

Dhillon came to Britain in 2001 using a forged wedding invitation with a photo of himself in a traditional Sikh dress. Boyce told the court that Dhillon portrayed himself as a traditional Sikh, but after the murder he shaved off his beard and removed his turban and cut his hair, "all of which for a Sikh are extraordinary significant steps. The reason he took these steps were to avoid being caught."
By the time Dhillon was caught he was using forged immigration documents using his clean shaven look, the court heard. The trial continues.