Brit-Indian woman killed for daring to file divorce petition

London, Oct 19 (ANI): Geeta Aulakh, an Indian origin woman in the UK, was allegedly killed with a machete on the orders of her husband because she wanted a divorce, the Old Bailey heard on Monday.

According to The Daily Mail, Aulakh who was the mother-of-two children had her hand severed as she was killed in a street in Greenford last November by three attackers who fled after leaving her dying in the street.

Her husband Harpreet had reportedly offered 5,000 pounds in a room of Punjabi men for 'someone to be murdered'.

"His reaction displayed a chilling belief, almost certainly culturally rooted, in male unaccountability. How dare a mere woman, as he and other like-minded accomplices viewed her, challenge that smug, chauvinist mind-set. Geeta was in the process of divorcing him and that would not be tolerated," Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee QC said.

Jafferjee further told jurors that the marriage had broken down for a long time and added that "It was the stigma of divorce, particularly for her, which let the marriage live on. She ultimately decided she had a life to lead, but away from him."

Meanwhile, Harpreet, of Greenford, has admitted that his marriage was in difficulties but denies any involvement in the murder.

Other accused, 19-year-old Sher Singh of Southall, west London Harpreet Singh, 20, of Slough, Berkshire, and Jaswant Dhillon, 30, of Ilford, east London, have also denied the morder charges.

The court heard that Harpreet warned his wife's sister that he would kill her because he thought she was having an affair. A few months before her death Geeta told a colleague her husband had told her 'if he could not have her then no one else would', the paper reports.

On September 29 in 2009, just a month before her death she had written a Facebook message to her husband saying, "I have never hated anyone in my life, but you."She reportedly signed her divorce petition on September 7 citing verbal abuse, accusations of infidelity and domestic violence, the paper said. (ANI)