Man killed wife on India trip

A businessman was jailed for life yesterday for murdering his wife on a trip to India. Kular, 46, strangled 26-year-old Ninderjit with her own scarf after luring her to the Punjab on a second honeymoon, Bristol Crown Court was told.

Mohan Kular, a market trader and shop owner, then tried to make her death in 1987 look like a road accident in an attempt to claim pounds 800,000 in life insurance payouts.

During a five-week trial, the court heard how British detectives travelled to northern India to gather evidence about Ninderjit's death.

Prosecutors then used a little-known law to charge father-of-four Kular with murder, even though the offence was committed 4,000 miles away in India.

Kular pleaded not guilty, but the jury convicted him. He stared ahead impassively as judge Mr Justice Sir Roger Toulson passed a life sentence.

He told Kular: "You treated your wife cruelly during her life. She found refuge at a women's place of safety. You persuaded her to leave by a written agreement with promises for her safety cynically made because by that time you had taken pounds 800,000 insurance cover on her life and were intending to kill her. "You tricked her to go to India with you. You there murdered her and fabricated an explanation as to what happened to her.

"You believed that by murdering her in the Punjab you would get away with your crime. Ten years later, justice has been done."

Kular, from Swindon, Wiltshire, had also faced a second murder charge relating to his business partner and lover Baksho Kaur Hans, 29.

He was accused of strangling her with her own scarf during a trip to India in 1981 after she demanded that part of his business be put in her name.

But the jury of seven women and five men failed to agree a verdict after more than 14 hours of deliberation and were yesterday discharged by the judge.

They also failed to agree a verdict on a charge that Kular incited a hitman to murder a business rival. The Crown Prosecution Service has until the end of the week to decide whether to order a retrial on these charges.