Kiranjit Ahluwalia - Background

Background

In 1979, at the age of 23, Ahluwalia left her home of Chakkalal in Punjab to travel to the United Kingdom after marrying her husband, Deepak—a man she had only met once. For ten years, she stated that she suffered from domestic abuse including physical violence, food deprivation, and marital rape.

When Ahluwalia looked to her family for help, they reprimanded her, saying it was a matter of family honour that she remain with her husband. She ultimately tried running away from home, but was found by her husband and brought back into her abusive environment. During her marriage, Ahluwalia had two sons who often bore witness to the violence she endured.

One evening in the spring of 1989, Ahluwalia was allegedly attacked by her husband later accusing him of trying to break her ankles and burn her face with a hot iron, apparently trying to extort money from her extended family. Later that night while her husband lay sleeping, Ahluwalia fetched some petrol and caustic soda mixture from the garage. She poured it over the bed and set it alight, and ran into a garden with her three-year-old son.

In a later interview she stated: "I decided to show him how much it hurt. At times I had tried to run away, but he would catch me and beat me even harder. I decided to burn his feet so he couldn't run after me." She also claimed: "I wanted to give him a scar like those he had given me, to have him suffer pain as I had"

Deepak suffered severe burns over forty percent of his body and died 10 days later in hospital from complications of severe burn and subsequent sepsis. Ahluwalia, who could only speak broken English at the time, was arrested and ultimately charged with murder.