TRUE CRIME DOCUMENTARY: SHE DIDN’T KNOW THEIR PLAN!

Hello, today we are going to take a look at another horrible case with you.
From the late ’90s to the late 2000s, an incident occurred in the United Kingdom that shook not only the UK but also a large state in India: Punjab.
During this decade, a murder plot was crafted so shocking that learning about the mindset of the killers will make your blood run cold.

In 1987, Surjit Kaur was just 16 years old.
It was that same year that her father, Mohinder Pal Singh Dillon, and mother, Surrinder Kaur, began searching for a boy to marry Surjit.
In a short amount of time, they found a 26-year-old man named Sukdev Singh Athwal for her.
Even though Surjit did not want to marry, she was forced into marrying Sukdev Singh, who was 10 years older than her.
Surjit had always been a fun-loving, brave, and cheerful girl, and her family believed that she would continue to have the same happiness in her life after marriage.

Actually, at that time, most families in many villages in India were conservative and kept girls under strict supervision from a young age, often not allowing them to leave the house.
Additionally, girls were often married off in their teenage years or early 20s.
Now, even though Surjit’s parents lived in the UK, they belonged to a small village in the state of Punjab, so they also arranged Surjit’s marriage early.
Before the wedding, Surjit Kaur met Sukdev Singh and his family only once.

After the marriage, Surjit learned that in her in-law’s house, no decision was made without consulting her widowed mother-in-law, Bachan Kaur Athwal.
Bachan Kaur’s word was final, and she kept everyone except her own children under her control.
Until 1988, there were only five members in the Athwal family: the head of the household, Bachan Kaur Athwal; her elder son, Sukdev Singh Athwal; younger son, Hardev Singh Athwal; and her daughter, Bajan Kaur.
Anyway, after Surjit married into the Athwal family, she became Surjit Kaur Athwal.

The Athwal family lived in the city of Hayes in West London.
But after the marriage, Surjit’s life turned into a living hell, because at an age when she should have been studying and exploring her life, she had to wash her in-law’s clothes, clean their dirty dishes, and sweep and mop the house.
Despite all this, if Surjit ever made a mistake while doing household chores, her mother-in-law would get very angry with her.
Besides, whenever Surjit would say even a little bit in front of her in-laws, her husband Sukdev would beat her so badly that poor Surjit would sit alone in her room and cry.

Now you might be wondering why, despite enduring so much abuse, Surjit never told her parents or brothers about it.
But for your information, let me tell you that Surjit had shown her wounds to her family many times.
However, they silenced her, saying: “This is just a matter of a few days. If you endure patiently, one day you’ll win the hearts of your in-laws, and then everything will be fine.”
But Surjit, who was always happy, had never seen so much sorrow in her life as she had seen in the past few months since coming to the Athwal family’s house.

In fact, Surjit Kaur was born on July 17th, 1971, in the city of Coventry, England, and Surjit grew up in a suburb called Foleshill.
Surjit had three sisters and two brothers, and all of them had been living in England from the beginning.
Since Surjit belonged to a Sikh family, she and her other siblings were raised in a very traditional manner.

Anyway, in the year 1989, Surjit’s brother-in-law Hardev also had an arranged marriage with a girl named Sarjit.
Sarjit was also young, obedient, and very innocent.
But just a few days after the marriage, she too learned the truth about the Athwal family.
In fact, at home, Bachan Kaur started treating both her daughters-in-law the same way.
All day they had to cook, clean, and obey every command of the Athwal family.
Essentially, they were no longer being treated like daughters-in-law of the Athwal family, but more like servants.
In an interview, Sarjit mentions that in 1991, when both Surjit and Sarjit were pregnant within a few months of each other, they were still treated like slaves.

Anyway, both Surjit and Sarjit gave birth to a child each, but even after that, Bachan Kaur’s behavior towards her daughters-in-law didn’t change.
She would even start scolding them at the slightest crying of her grandchildren, to the extent that when the children got a little older, Bachan Kaur would tell them not to call her grandma, but to call her mom instead.

From the outside, the Athwal family appeared to be very religious and cheerful to everyone.
The entire family would go to the nearby Gurdwara, and whenever they met someone, they would never let it show what was happening inside their home.
However, within the four walls of the house, innocent Surjit would endure the scolding from her husband and mother-in-law.
But many times, even after being beaten, Surjit Kaur would confront her husband and mother-in-law.
This is why Surjit faced the most violence, and that’s why she had become extremely frustrated with this life of servitude.

One day, Surjit decided that she would leave the house and look for a job, so she could feel free for at least one job.
After this, Surjit tried for jobs at several places, and eventually she got a job as a customs agent at London Heathrow Airport.
Here, because of Surjit Kaur’s beautiful and friendly personality, she made many new friends, and she was really enjoying her life with them.
Influenced by her new friends, she even bought some western clothes and makeup items.
However, Surjit’s transformation did not sit well with her husband Sukdev and her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur.
Sukdev felt that maybe his wife Surjit was no longer listening to him and was going out of his control.

But things got even worse when in January 1994, fed up with the constant arguments, 23-year-old Surjit ran away from home with her three-year-old daughter Paan.
However, just a few days later, Sukdev Singh finds Surjit and once again he beats her and threatens that if she doesn’t come back home, he won’t let her live.
Although Surjit agrees to go back with Sukdev, she puts forward a condition that she can’t stay at the same house anymore.
Surprisingly, Sukdev agrees to Surjit’s condition and says that they will soon move into a separate house.
Then Sukdev talks to his mother Bachan Kaur and buys the house next to theirs.
After this, the couple starts living with their daughter in the house right next to their main house.

However, ever since Surjit started going out for her job, Sukdev had suspected that she was having an affair with another man.
As a result, in 1997, when Surjit becomes pregnant again and gives birth to a son, Sukdev refuses to accept the child, questioning who the real father might be.
Sukdev’s words deeply hurt Surjit, but now it wasn’t just Sukdev; the entire Athwal family was looking at Surjit with suspicion.
Despite Surjit’s numerous efforts to prove her husband Sukdev wrong, no one was willing to listen to her.
Life in this house started to suffocate Surjit.

After enduring the harshness and violence of her in-laws for a long time, Surjit now needed people who loved her.
Because of this, she wanted to spend more and more time with her co-workers.
While working at the airport, Surjit befriends a man who values her; he talks to her with great affection, and soon Surjit falls in love with him.
Sukdev had been suspicious of Surjit ever since she started working, but now whenever Surjit left the house for work in the morning, Sukdev would follow her every day.
If Surjit ever went out with her friends, Sukdev would track her there too.
Within a few days, Sukdev learns about Surjit’s affair and shares this information with his mother, brother, and sister.
After learning about this, the Athwal family felt that Surjit was tarnishing their family’s reputation, so they decided that she needed to be taught a lesson.

However, when Sukdev spoke to his wife Surjit about it, Surjit realized that everyone had found out about her affair, and so she started thinking about making the biggest decision of her life.
One day in November 1998, Surjit asked Sukdev for a divorce.
But Sukdev Singh and Bachan Kaur did not accept Surjit’s decision.
Surjit already knew that her husband, influenced by his mother, wouldn’t agree to a divorce.

Days passed like this, and then one day in December 1998, a meeting was held in the lounge of their main house while Surjit was not at home.
Bachan Kaur, Sukdev Singh, Hardev Singh, Bajan Kaur, and even Surjit’s sister-in-law Sarjit attended this meeting.
While drinking tea, Bachan Kaur said to everyone: “Surjit is getting out of control and tarnishing our family’s name, so we need to get rid of her. I’ve spoken to someone in India who will kill Surjit and erase all traces of her existence.”
Everyone liked Bachan Kaur’s idea very much, including Surjit’s husband Sukdev Singh, who was also ready to have his wife killed.
But hearing all this, Sarjit became very scared.
Although she wanted to inform Surjit about it, she couldn’t muster the courage to do so because of her fear of her husband Hardev and mother-in-law Bachan Kaur.

But the next day, Sarjit Kaur is surprised when her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur calls her and Surjit over and says: “There are two weddings at our relatives’ place in India, and I want to attend both of them. But my heart’s desire is that you come with me, because ever since you came into this house, we as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law haven’t gone anywhere together outside our city.”
Besides this, Bachan Kaur also tells Surjit: “When we return to London, you can get a divorce from Sukdev.”
Surjit finds this quite normal and she feels happy that she’ll finally get a divorce and be able to live a free life.
But little did Surjit know that this trip from London to India would prove to be some of her last days.

Now preparations for the trip to India begin and plane tickets are purchased.
The departure ticket from London was for December 3rd, 1998, and they were supposed to stay in India for a few days.
They were to attend two weddings in the Punjab state of India, and their return ticket was for December 18th.
However, as the date of December 3rd approached, Sarjit’s worries began to grow.
Although she didn’t discuss this with Surjit Kaur, she did tell her husband Hardev that they should stop his mother Bachan Kaur from taking this step.
But Hardev, who was afraid of his mother, told Sarjit to keep quiet.
Sarjit couldn’t directly tell Surjit about this because she feared that if she revealed Bachan Kaur’s plan to Surjit and Bachan Kaur and her sons found out, there was no telling what they might do to her as well.

But here, Sarjit was also worried about Surjit’s life, so to save Surjit, she went far from her home a few hours before Bachan Kaur and Surjit’s flight and called Crimestoppers from a phone booth.
In this call, Sarjit told the Crimestoppers operator about the meeting where for the first time Bachan Kaur had talked about getting Surjit killed.
Along with this, Sarjit also provided Surjit’s flight number to Crimestoppers.
Additionally, on the same day, Sarjit wrote a letter to her local police station in which she detailed the meeting held at home and listed all the family members who were present.
She even mentioned the location in India where Surjit and Bachan Kaur were planning to stay and requested immediate action.
However, Sarjit did not include her name in the letter because she couldn’t risk exposing herself in front of her in-laws.

Anyway, on December 3rd, Surjit said goodbye to her 7-year-old daughter and 9-month-old son and left for the airport with her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur.
Seeing this, Sarjit went inside the house and started crying in her room because she feared that now Surjit would never return to England.
Although Sarjit had tried her best to save Surjit’s life, she neither received any response from Crimestoppers nor did the police reply to her letter.
In fact, no investigation was carried out by the police.
It’s possible that the police never received the letter written by Sarjit, or they dismissed it as a joke or a hoax, considering it was sent anonymously.

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Now let’s continue with the story.

Well, now the date comes to December 18th, 1998.
Bachan Kaur returns from India alone, without Surjit.
Seeing this, Sarjit started feeling suspicious, and when she asked her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur about Surjit, Bachan Kaur replied: “Surjit really enjoyed her time in Punjab, so she decided to stay there for a few more days.”
Hearing this, strange thoughts began to cross Sarjit’s mind.
A few days passed like this, but when Surjit’s father finds out that his daughter Surjit had gone to India with her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur on December 3rd but Bachan Kaur returned alone on December 18th, he questions Bachan Kaur about his daughter’s disappearance.
However, Bachan Kaur tells Surjit’s father a fabricated story, saying: “Surjit found another man in India and then she ran away with him to an unknown place.”
At this point, Sukdev Singh also says: “Not too long ago I had spoken with Surjit on the phone, but now she just wants to stay with her lover and doesn’t care about her children anymore.”
But Surjit’s parents and her other siblings knew that Surjit could never do such a thing.

Because of this, on December 21st, 1998, Surjit’s brother Jagdish Singh goes to the Metropolitan Police and files a missing person report for Surjit.
Following this, the police officially begin their investigation.
At that time, the police did not investigate the way they should have, which led the Athwal family to stay busy in their daily lives.
Meanwhile, Surjit’s brother Jagdish Singh and his father persistently followed up with the police, visiting the British Foreign Office multiple times to insist that they should also investigate in India to find Surjit.

On the other hand, every day for the Athwal family was spent in fear that something terrible might happen to Surjit and her children.
However, in February 1999, Surjit’s husband Sukdev attempted to claim Surjit’s £100,000 life insurance.
Sukdev was unsuccessful in this attempt and eventually filed for divorce against Surjit in court to avoid police scrutiny.
In the divorce filing, Sukdev claimed that his wife had gone to India and ran off with another man.

Nevertheless, in May 2000, the Metropolitan Police arrested four members of the Athwal family for conspiring to murder Surjit in India.
The four included the head of the household Bachan Kaur, her two sons Sukdev Singh and Hardev Singh, and Sarjit Kaur.
However, they were held at the police station for only one day; after some questioning, the police released everyone without any charges.
The police suspected that Sarjit might also be involved in Bachan Kaur’s scheme and was trying to save herself by deliberately providing the police with a partial story.
This deeply hurt Sarjit, as she was actually trying to seek justice for Surjit.

After that, the police put up posters about Surjit’s disappearance in every corner of the city and offered a reward of £1,000 for any information about her.
Despite this, several years went by without any information about Surjit reaching the police.

As I mentioned earlier, Sarjit lived in constant fear in the Athwal family since Surjit’s disappearance.
As a result, in 2004, due to being physically and mentally weak, Sarjit suffered a panic attack and was taken to the hospital.
But when Sarjit started recovering in the hospital, she decided that she would cut off all ties with the Athwal family at any cost.
So when Sarjit was discharged from the hospital, she went straight to her father’s house, where she told him about the meeting in which the plan to kill Surjit had been made.
Hearing this story, Sarjit’s father asked his daughter Sarjit to go to the police and give a statement.
So Sarjit showed courage and went to the police station to tell the whole story.

However, when the police reopened the case in 2005 and started questioning the Athwal family again, Sarjit and her father began receiving death threats.
Under the leadership of Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll, some officers from the Metropolitan Police went to India for 10 days to collect evidence and interview suspects in the case.
After a complex investigation, the police officially arrested Bachan Kaur, Sukdev Singh, and Hardev Singh on November 3rd, 2005.

By August 2006, it was proven that Bachan Kaur and Sukdev Singh had orchestrated the murder of Surjit Kaur.
However, when the full story of the murder came to light, it shocked everyone.

After arriving in India, Bachan Kaur and Surjit were picked up by a man named Daran Singh, who was Bachan Kaur’s brother.
Subsequently, on December 5th and 6th, Surjit and Bachan Kaur attended two weddings in Punjab.
A few days later, Surjit wanted to go shopping, so Bachan Kaur gave her some money and told her to go shopping with her brother Daran Singh.
Later, Daran Singh and a friend of his started their Jeep, and Surjit got in.
After a while, when Surjit felt thirsty, Daran Singh gave her water from his vehicle, but the water had been laced with a drug.
As a result, Surjit lost consciousness, and Daran Singh and his accomplice strangled her to death.
They then removed all of Surjit’s jewelry and dumped her body in the Ravi River, which has not been recovered to this day.

Anyway, the trial began at the Central Criminal Court on April 25th, 2007, and lasted for 3 months.
Sarjit testified against Bachan Kaur and Sukdev Singh in court for 3 days.
After that, both Bachan Kaur and Sukdev Singh were sentenced to life imprisonment.
When Bachan Kaur was sentenced, she was 70 years old, making her one of the oldest women to receive a life sentence in criminal history.
However, after serving 20 years, Bachan Kaur could have been eligible for parole, and Sukdev Singh could have been eligible after serving 27 years.
In March 2009, Bachan Kaur appealed against both her conviction and sentence in court.
Although her appeal against the sentence was dismissed, due to her advancing age and illness, her minimum tariff was reduced to 15 years.
As a result, in 2022, Bachan Kaur was released on bail from prison.

However, the sad part is that the real killers of Surjit Kaur in India, Daran Singh and his accomplice, were never caught.
On the other hand, Sarjit had divorced her husband Hardev Singh and moved with her four children to another place.
Additionally, Sarjit wrote about her ordeal and Surjit’s story in a book titled “Shamed: The Honour Killing That Shocked Britain.”

If you guys are concerned about Surjit’s two children, you should know that after Sukdev Singh was arrested, a Social Services Agency took care of Surjit’s children.
The lively Surjit was happy even in her last moments, enjoying shopping, but little did she know that some beasts would destroy her smile forever in the name of honor.

So with that, the Surjit Kaur Athwal honour killing case comes to an end right here. Additionally.