London, Dec. 01, 2007
Labh Singh Labana
Harmohinder Kaur Sanghera ( Mindy), a 23-year-old Sikh girl,
top grades student in dentistry at Birmingham University, fell
in love with playboy Muslim businessman Sair Ali, get life in
imprisonment for stabbing Ali's pregnant wife.
At the Manchester crown court, Judge John Saunders told Harmohinder
that the sentence reflected the degree of planning she put into
the murder and the fact that her victim was pregnant. Sentencing
her to life imprisonment, the judge told her she would serve at
least 14 years before being considered for release.
Sair Ali kept Sanghera in the dark about his engagement when,
in December 2006, he flew to Pakistan to marry his teenage bride.
In January Sana arrived from Pakistan to be with her husband.
When Harmohinder found out he had secretly gone through with
an arranged marriage to his teenage cousin, Sana Ali, and that
she was pregnant, she became consumed with jealousy and decided
to eliminate the woman standing between them.
Sair Ali told her they could never marry because his parents
would never accept a Sikh daughter-in-law. His family live in
a large, detached house on the outskirts of Bury, Greater Manchester.
He had been betrothed to Sana, his first cousin, since she was
nine.He was enjoying himself, conducting secret affairs and frequenting
nightclubs.
Sair Ali's wife Sana Ali: She
moved to England from Pakistan five years ago. She lived with
her family at Cheadle Heath, Stockport, before marrying last December
and had begun a childcare course at Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form
College last September. She was about to turn 17, shy and her
only interests were cooking and cleaning.
Harmohinder Sanghera's family: Harmohinder is
the youngest daughter of a very respected Punjabi parents living
in a £400,000 house in Solihull in the West Midlands. Gurnek
Singh Sanghera, her father is a manager for Royal Mail. Her mother
Satinder Sanghera works at Marks & Spencer.
Harmohinder was interested for a career in medical school after
achieving straight A's at King Edward the Sixth Grammar School.
Later she decided to join dentistry at Birmingham University and
had a posting lined up at one of the city's top practices
Sanghera had caught his eye after they were introduced by friends
in 2005. She was convinced her future lay with him, and talked
of converting to Islam. She was westernized and not religious.
She started to abstain from alcohol, began wearing a head scarf
and eating halal food.
According to local media, Sanghera would light candle after candle
when he was away, never letting the flame die out, demanded that
he phone her and speak to her until she fell asleep, and wrote
to him saying she wanted to be his "golden girl".
At other times she would make abusive comments about Sana or
demand to know whether they had sex the night before.
In one of her letters to him she wrote: "I think I am going
crazy. I thought I could handle it and deal with cutting contact
with you but I can't.
"Maybe I am a psycho, crazy, or just a fool, or maybe all
of those things."
Rather than cut off contact altogether, Mr Ali agreed to keep
seeing her until after her exams that summer, and they secretly
entered a temporary Islamic marriage.
They spoke by phone on the evening of Thursday, May 10, discussing
going away together that weekend.
On May 11, the following day, with Mr Ali at mosque and his teenage
brother at college, Sanghera drove to Bury.
Peter Wright, QC, prosecuting said, the teenager was attacked
in a bedroom and stabbed 43 times. Many of the blows were directed
at her abdomen and the deepest wound she suffered had gone into
her stomach.
Before fleeing, she plunged the blade into her belly. The baby,
a boy who was to have been named Abdul, would have been due last
week.
Sanghera then calmly spoke to Mr Ali on the phone before returning
home, leaving his sister to discover the horrific scene.
Sanghera admitted visiting Sana but claimed she had left her
alive and well, and at her trial the defence suggested Mr Ali
had killed her.
