Brit Asians travel to India to hire contract killers to eliminate the unwanted

London, Sep.28 (ANI): A BBC investigation has uncovered the deadly practice of British Asians travelling to India to hire contract killers.

Family and business associates, who are lured to the sub-continent, are often the targets.

In a country where murder is cheaper and less fraught with risk, the perpetrators of these crimes are rarely brought to justice.

Campaigners in both India and the UK believe this to have claimed the lives of hundreds of victims over several years.

These armchair murder plots are hatched in the living rooms of Britain and executed mainly in Punjab.

Take the example of a British woman, who was on holiday with her husband visiting relatives in Punjab. She was killed. The husban'd family said that she was a victim of a hit-and-run accident, but her relatives suspected foul play.

"Her husband wanted to re-marry. He told her to leave him - she said, 'I'll die but I won't let him go'," her mother revealed.

She was one of the first to arrive on the scene.

"They beat her up. They dumped her in the ditch and made it look like an accident. They wanted to show it like an accident. There was no blood, no car and no tyre marks."

For legal reasons, we can not name the victim or her family.

Her killing bears striking similarity to that of another British woman, Surjit Athwal.

The 26-year-old mother of two disappeared in Punjab in 1998.

Two years ago, a British court found her mother-in-law and husband guilty of arranging her murder.

They had hired criminals in India to kill her. She was strangled and her body dumped in a river.

Her brother, Jagdeesh Singh, now campaigns for other victims' families. (ANI)