India’s lack of action over death of British
woman Seeta Kaur fuels fight for UK law change
By Vivek Chaudhary
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A poster of Seeta Kaur,
with family members Amrit Singh, Swinder Singh,
Ravinder Kaur and Geeta
Nazmi at the launch of a campaign to
investigate Seeta’s
death. Photograph: Southall Black Sisters
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When Seeta Kaur arrived in India with her
children for a three-week visit to her husband’s relatives she was determined
that when she returned to Britain it would be with both the sons who had
accompanied her.
Since giving birth to the boys, who were aged
10 and two when they travelled to India, Seeta had confided in her family and
close friends about the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of her
husband, Pawan, for resisting his demands to give one of them away.
Pawan, an Indian national, lived with Seeta
and their four children (they also had two daughters) in Edmonton, north
London, where she was born and raised. He wanted his brother and sister-in-law
in India to have one of their sons because they could not have children of
their own and, at the end of the trip, threatened to leave one of them behind.
Informal inter-family adoptions are not
uncommon in India, because of an inefficient and disorganised legal adoption
system. According to the government’s own figures, 3,000 children were adopted
formally in the country last year, while there are an estimated 30 million
orphans in the country.
Swinder Singh, Seeta’s sister, said: “She was
open with us about the volatile relationship with her husband and the huge
pressure she was under to give one of her sons away, which he had made a matter
of family honour. She was a British woman and the idea horrified her.”
On 31 March last year, Pawan phoned Seeta’s
family in north London to tell them she had died of a heart attack at her
in-laws’ home in Kurukshetra in the north Indian state of Haryana.
They flew to India and began to suspect she
was the victim of an “honour” killing when they saw bruising around Seeta’s
neck and upper chest as she lay in her coffin. They announced their plan to
take her back to Britain the following morning for a postmortem … but awoke to
discover that Seeta had been cremated while they slept. When the case was
closed by Indian police without a full investigation, Seeta’s family turned to
the Metropolitan police for help, but say they were initially told that British
officers had no jurisdiction to investigate because the alleged crime took
place abroad.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it
could not get involved, or help secure the return of Seeta’s four children, who
remain in India with their father, despite the high court ordering their return
in April last year.
The family’s fight is now being led by the
women’s group Southall Black Sisters,who have amassed a dossier of evidence and
launched a “Justice for Seeta” campaign. They are backed by Kate Osamor, the
family’s local MP, and Naz Shah, who has led the fight for justice for Samia
Shahid, the Bradford woman killed in Pakistan last July.
They are calling for the Metropolitan police
to look into Seeta’s case, and demanding new legislation that would make it
easier to investigate “honour” killings of British citizens abroad, claiming a
legal grey area is letting perpetrators evade justice.
Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black
Sisters, said: “Men are taking women abroad and getting away with honour crimes
because the law is not clear on what exactly is the duty of British authorities
to investigate them.”
Describing the current situation as a
“lottery”, she cited cases such as that of Madeleine McCann and missing toddler
Ben Needham as proof that British police are willing to investigate crimes
abroad in some instances. “Clearly, when there are non-white Britons involved
and it’s an ‘honour’ crime, then there appears to be a dereliction of duty on
the part of the British police. This is what has happened in Seeta’s case,
because we have collected concrete evidence and yet the Metropolitan police
have not acted upon it.”
This evidence includes 26 witness statements
from friends and relatives with details of the abuse they say she suffered for
opposing her husband. One of her closest friends testified that, ahead of the
trip to India, Seeta confided to her that she feared for her life. It was also
said that the couple had a heated argument on the night she died. Medical
reports showed that Seeta, aged 33, had no condition to explain a heart attack.
Shamik Dutta, solicitor for Seeta’s family,
said: “A new law which recognises the international nature of honour killing
would help families secure justice and act as a deterrent against such
offences.”
The dossier compiled by campaigners was sent
to the Metropolitan police in August, but no response has yet been received.
The police said in a statement: “We are in the process of responding to a
number of queries raised with us by a firm of solicitors acting on behalf of
the family of Seeta.”