NEW DELHI, Sept 18: A 71-year old US citizen of Indian origin, who dreamt of starting a new life marrying for the third time, ended up in a sack with her mutilated body recovered from a drain in Ludhiana in Punjab with her murder planned by her believed-to be paramour.
Rupinder Kaur Pandher, 71, had seen 75-year-old Charanjit Singh Grewal’s profile on a matrimonial site and the two began talking. Pandher, who lived in Seattle, was involved in a property dispute and Grewal offered to help and got her in touch with Sukhjeet Singh, a resident of Kila Raipur in Ludhiana Patti, who was a typist in a local court.
Police said as the two grew closer, Grewal asked Pandher, who had been married twice earlier, to marry her and, later, made her transfer large sums of money to him. He then asked her to come to Ludhiana, where he is originally from, in July and made her stay with Singh, who was helping her with the legal matter.
But The UK-based NRI Grewal only wanted to keep the money he had got from Pandher and was not interested in marrying her, planned the murder of the woman. He promised Singh he would give him Rs 50 lakh and help him settle abroad if he killed her, police said. Singh repeatedly hit Pandher with a baseball bat at his home until she died, burned her body and dumped it in a drain on July 18. He also damaged her phone.
Pandher’s sister, Kamal Kaur Khairah, tried calling her on July 24 and grew suspicious when she could not reach her. She informed the US embassy in India, which alerted the police. After they began investigations, police learned that Pandher had been staying at Singh’s house. Singh broke down under questioning and confessed to killing Pandher and getting his house painted after the crime to avoid suspicion.
Based on the information given by Singh, the police also recovered parts of Pandher’s skeleton from the drain where he had dumped her burnt body. “Singh has been arrested and Grewal, who is abroad, has been charged in the murder case,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Rupinder Singh.
(Manas Dasgupta)