Ho­n­our killing, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and tor­ture takes the life of young mother. Many such sto­ries lie buried with­out be­ing told. But for Sur­jit Kaur Ath­wal sib­lings’ tenac­ity and con­sis­tency, par­tic­u­larly the au­thor, who fought tooth and nail, con­ducted a recce of the scene of crime in Pun­jab, un­cov­ered ev­i­dence, pre­sented it to the British po­lice, the con­vic­tion of her hus­band and mother-in-law would have been im­pos­si­ble.

On 16 July, Sur­jit Kaur Ath­wal would have been 46 years old. Alas it was not to be. My sis­ter Sur­jit was killed 19 years ago in a very vi­cious and covert mur­der in Pun­jab.

Im­me­di­ately upon her death, Sur­jit’s fam­ily em­barked on a pub­lic cam­paign to ex­pose not only this one case but all such cases, and draw pub­lic and gov­ern­men­tal at­ten­tion to this hor­ri­fy­ing prac­tise of out­sourced, two-state killings.

Sur­jit Kaur Ath­wal, then only 27-years old, was brought by her mother-in-law from the UK on a care­fully planned visit, with the end ob­jec­tive of Sur­jit’s mur­der. Un­known to Sur­jit, when she boarded the air flight from Lon­don Heathrow Air­port on 4th De­cem­ber 1998 with her schem­ing mother-in-law (Bachan Kaur Ath­wal), to ar­rive in In­dia; she was never go­ing back to her two chil­dren on the re­turn flight that was booked for her and her mother-in-law for 18th De­cem­ber 1998.

Only her mother-in-law would be go­ing back, with a chill­ing, empty seat for Sur­jit next to her. Sur­jit would be dead, her corpse dumped me­thod­i­cally in the River Ravi. She would never be able speak and tell the world what hap­pened to her. Her in-laws, the Ath­wals, would make sure her ‘dis­ap­pear­ance’ would be shrouded in de­lib­er­ate ru­mours and al­le­ga­tions of her run­ning away wil­fully with a sup­posed boyfriend, aban­don­ing her chil­dren and life in the UK.

“Sur­jit had en­dured 10-years of mis­ery in this dom­i­nant, con­trol­ling and vi­o­lence prone Pun­jabi fam­ily. Keep­ing things in con­trol, pub­lic im­age, ‘re­spect and ho­n­our’ was every­thing. Sur­jit was a wife, and was ex­pected to bear the brunt of fam­ily life and get on with things.  Sur­jit hero­ically bore this for 5-years, but then in­creas­ingly protested, dis­sented and re­belled. Her coura­geous re­bel­lion was pun­ished with mur­der.”

In De­cem­ber 1998, Sur­jit was brought to rus­tic Pun­jab as part of a well thought out plan, pre­pared in ad­vance at her in-laws’ home where she lived, in Hayes, west Lon­don. The all-pow­er­ful, grandiose, ego­tis­ti­cal mother-in-law (Bachan Kaur Ath­wal), an­nounced to her sons and daugh­ters, whilst Sur­jit was away from the home, that, the en­dur­ing prob­lem with Sur­jit de­mand­ing a di­vorce and chal­leng­ing the Ath­wal fam­ily strong-hold with her in­de­pen­dent, of­fend­ing ways of liv­ing; would now be sorted out by tak­ing her to Pun­jab and fin­ish­ing her off. The en­tire Ath­wal fam­ily sat and lis­tened, with­out any re­ac­tion, protest or dis­sent. It was as if it was a silent, col­lec­tive agree­ment. No at­tempt was made to warn Sur­jit of this im­mi­nent mur­der. Every­one within the Ath­wal fam­ily cir­cle, let it pro­ceed.  

Sur­jit had en­dured 10-years of mis­ery in this dom­i­nant, con­trol­ling and vi­o­lence prone Pun­jabi fam­ily. Keep­ing things in con­trol, pub­lic im­age, ‘re­spect and ho­n­our’ was every­thing. Sur­jit was a wife, and was ex­pected to bear the brunt of fam­ily life and get on with things.  Sur­jit hero­ically bore this for 5-years, but then in­creas­ingly protested, dis­sented and re­belled. There is only so much that the hu­man spirit can take. Un­like the other fel­low daugh­ter-in-law, Sur­jit had come from a fam­ily where Sikhi dri­ven jus­tice, fair-play and re­bel­lion was in their DNA. Sur­jit was not ready for such a mis­er­able life. Her coura­geous re­bel­lion was to be pun­ished with mur­der. 

“In the midst of all this un­cer­tain and un­even ac­tion on her case, Sur­jit’s sac­ri­fice and the fam­ily cam­paign has pro­pelled the whole sub­ject of out­sourced killings, ho­n­our killings, the British-In­dian gov­ern­ment re­la­tion­ship and the sheer in­jus­tice of how such two-state mur­ders are not ad­dressed and in­ves­ti­gated into the pub­lic fore. ”

The slick ease with which this whole mur­der from a home in Hayes, west Lon­don was car­ried out 5,000 miles away in the vil­lages around Pathankot, Gur­daspur; is fright­en­ingly shock­ing. De­spite a crim­i­nal con­vic­tion of the mother-in-law (the grand-per­pe­tra­tor) and her son Sukh­dave Singh Ath­wal (Sur­jit’s hus­band) hav­ing been achieved in the UK courts af­ter im­mense strug­gle and frus­tra­tion by Sur­jit’s fam­ily in 2007; the sheer ease and sim­plic­ity with which this re­mote-con­trol mur­der was car­ried out and the equal sheer ease with which it was suc­cess­fully cov­ered up for 9-10 years is a pro­found and com­pelling rev­e­la­tion of the mur­der­ous na­ture of In­dian so­ci­ety and In­dian of­fi­cial­dom. In­di­a’s jus­tice sys­tem reg­u­larly fails to in­ter­vene, in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute such hor­rors.

The sus­tained and de­ter­mined ef­forts by Sur­jit’s fam­ily in the UK to seek jus­tice have re­sulted in an of­fi­cial UK court con­vic­tion of two per­pe­tra­tors (mother-in-law and hus­band). I be­lieve more should have been pros­e­cuted, and many more were cer­tainly im­pli­cated dur­ing the UK po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions. This is the na­ture of ju­di­cial jus­tice. We are glad to have got the two prime con­vic­tions, and are heartily ap­pre­cia­tive of a UK jus­tice process which re­sponded to a mur­der with­out a body and a killing which had been done 5,000 miles away. In dras­tic con­trast, the In­dian jus­tice sys­tem had not even un­der­taken a cred­i­ble in­ves­ti­ga­tion, much less a pros­e­cu­tion. The In­dian per­pe­tra­tors re­main free and able to con­tinue with their de­vi­ous lives. The dead have lit­tle to no prospect of jus­tice in In­dia.

The ag­o­nis­ing strug­gle that has eaten up our fam­ily for all these 19-years over the mur­der­ous loss of Sur­jit, is only some­thing which an­other fam­ily in a sim­i­larly dev­as­tat­ing case can fully ap­pre­ci­ate.

In the midst of all this un­cer­tain and un­even ac­tion on her case, Sur­jit’s sac­ri­fice and the fam­ily cam­paign has pro­pelled the whole sub­ject of out­sourced killings, ho­n­our killings, the British-In­dian gov­ern­ment re­la­tion­ship and the sheer in­jus­tice of how such two-state mur­ders are not ad­dressed and in­ves­ti­gated into the pub­lic fore.

For the tor­ment and or­deal, we have en­dured over the en­tire case and the crit­i­cal de­fects it has pre­sented in re­gards to UK po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions, gov­ern­ment to gov­ern­ment in­ac­tion and more; we re­it­er­ate our long-stand­ing call for a full-scale pub­lic en­quiry into this whole area of out­sourced mur­ders, tak­ing Sur­jit’s case, the Man­jit Ku­lar case and Seeta Saini Kau­r’s case as a prime fo­cus.

I end with the pow­er­ful name of SUR­JIT -en­liven and em­power.