BRITAIN:A 70-year-old grandmother was facing the prospect of dying behind bars yesterday after a landmark case in which she was found guilty of plotting the "honour killing" of her daughter-in-law.
Bachan Athwal, one of the oldest women in Britain to be convicted of murder, decided to "get rid" of Surjit Kaur Athwal (27) by luring her to India after she had an affair.
Surjit, a customs officer, is believed to have been strangled in the Punjab and her body dumped in the river Ravi in December 1998.
Her body has never been found and details of the plot only came to light when her Indian-born mother-in-law boasted that she had got a relative to kill her.
Surjit's husband, Sukhdave (43) who still lives with his mother, finalised the plans for the murder over tea and biscuits in the front room of their house in Hayes, west London.
Jagdeesh Singh Dhillon, Surjit's brother, said the verdict "brought the struggle and pain of the last nine years to a positive conclusion".
Surjit endured 10 years of an unhappy arranged marriage living with her husband and mother-in-law before beginning an affair with a work colleague and starting divorce proceedings.
Athwal accused her of having an abortion and branded her a "murderer" and a "slag" after she suffered a miscarriage three months after the wedding.
When she finally gave birth in 1991, the Sikh matriarch snatched her granddaughter and taught the child to call her "mummy".
By December 1998, Surjit had decided to leave, but reluctantly agreed to go on a trip to India with Athwal to attend family weddings. The older woman returned alone and claimed her daughter-in-law had left to attend a course in England.
But Sarbjit Athwal, another daughter-in-law, told the court she had been told they planned to dispose of Surjit in India. "My mother-in-law said she wasn't getting on and it was causing too much confusion and problems in the family - and they were going to get rid of Surjit," she said.
When her sister-in-law failed to return, Sarbjit threatened to go to the police but was warned by Sukhdave that "if you say anything you will go down with us".
Detectives discovered Sukhdave had taken out life insurance for £65,000 shortly before his wife vanished, but cancelled it after realising the company would not pay up without a body.
Sukhdave divorced his missing wife in 2001 and remarried. In 2004, mother and son forged papers to transfer ownership of the family house out of Surjit's name, faking her signature.
That proved the final straw for Sarbjit, who went to police. Mother and son will be sentenced in September