British Expatriates (Punjab)

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing this important debate on an issue that has real ramifications for British nationals who visit India. I also pay tribute to his excellent work in representing the concerns of his constituents.

Like my hon. Friend, I have encountered a tragic and horrific case. It involves the mother of a constituent of mine. Surjit Kaur was a British national who visited India in February and March 2011. I am led to believe from the little information that the family and I, and the Foreign Office, have been provided with by the Indian authorities that Mrs Kaur was murdered on 31 March 2011.

Mrs Kaur’s tragic case was highlighted in The Guardian on Friday 8 April 2011. It is that newspaper’s reporting of the facts of the case to which I will refer. As I said, the Indian authorities have not provided the full facts, which were sought by the family and me in our meeting with the Foreign Office. At this point, I thank the Foreign Office Minister, who was very kind in meeting the family, taking on board their concerns and coming back with a number of points that needed clarification. Despite his best efforts, I was very disappointed with the response of the Indian authorities in not providing that information.

I will set out briefly the facts of the case. The report in The Guardian stated:

“The decapitated remains of a British woman have been recovered by Indian police who claim she was murdered after a bungled attempt to extort money from her children in the UK.

The head and body of Surjit Kaur, who is believed to have been in her 60s, were found separately this week. Two local men, one a relative of the victim, have been arrested and police said they had confessed to the killing. The two arrested men, named by police as Harbhaghan Singh and Gurwinder Singh, visited the home of a close relative of Kaur after her disappearance to express their concern, according to reports.”

The Guardian report goes on to say:

“Sandip Sharma, the deputy superintendent of…police, who is investigating the murder, told the Guardian the attack took place after the two suspects lured her away under false pretences…He said they strangled Kaur, cut off her head and threw it into a river. Her body was dismembered and scattered in nearby fields, he added.”

In the light of that, I asked some specific questions of the Indian authorities in the meeting with the Minister. I have a response from the Foreign Office, dated 21 December 2011; it followed the meeting between the family and the Minister on 23 November. The first question was this: did the two accused plead guilty to the murder of Mrs Kaur? The answer in that letter was yes—they pleaded guilty to the murder of Mrs Kaur. The second question that I asked specifically was whether they were sentenced for the murder of Mrs Kaur. The answer in the letter was that they were not:

“The trial collapsed before it reached a conclusion and so the accused were not sentenced.”

When two people have confessed to a murder, how can a trial collapse? It defies logic to hear that two people have admitted guilt for the murder of an individual and then to be told that the trial has collapsed. But it gets worse than that, which is why I think that there needs to be a full, thorough investigation.

On page 2 of the letter is a question that I asked:

“Why did the case collapse and what can be done now?”

The answer comes back from the Indian authorities that the police have now confirmed that the case is closed. How can it be closed if Mrs Kaur has been murdered and we have two people who admit to the murder? We are told that the case has collapsed. If it has collapsed, the authorities should reopen the inquiry and try to find out who committed the murder, but in this case the Indian authorities are saying, “Sorry—case closed”. That causes me real concern.

I say this to the Minister. We have so many people, including expat nationals, who travel to India and want to be safe. India is a booming economy, but it also has a moral and ethical obligation for the safety of our constituents. Look at the case to which I am referring. If individuals who have accepted that they committed murder are walking away from a court, that leads me—and, indeed, any reasonable person—to come to the following conclusions. The legal system is defunct and illogical; the investigation is incompetent; there are corrupt practices; or there is a combination of all three.

I urge the Indian authorities to reopen this case. They say that the case has collapsed. In any civilised legal system, if a case has collapsed, the authorities reopen it to get the people who have committed murder. In this case, that is even more imperative because the two individuals had previously pleaded guilty to the horrific murder of Mrs Kaur.

The authorities need to carry out an independent and thorough inquiry, so that my constituent and his family can get the one thing that they want—justice for their mother. They want nothing but justice for their mother. I urge the Foreign Office to make the strongest possible representations to the Indian authorities to reopen the case and ensure that those who carried out this horrific murder are brought to justice.

I again pay tribute to the work that the Minister has done and how he dealt with the family. I pay tribute to the work done by the consular staff and all the others involved, including the family liaison officers from Kent police in my constituency who worked with the family. But despite all that, what this comes down to is the will of the Indian authorities. In this case, it is clear that there is no will. If they want the Indian legal system to be taken seriously, they must reopen the inquiry and bring the people responsible to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Browne]

I will come to that point later in my speech. Although it is an important intervention, the House and the wider public must understand the limitations that we in the Foreign Office face in our jurisdiction and our staffing and budgetary restraints. Literally millions of British people travel abroad every year, and we provide a service that is as good and as comprehensive as we can within the constraints that exist.

I was talking about the role of the sovereign Government—in this case, the Indian Government—in investigating a case. We recommend to the families involved that it is imperative to retain the services of a local lawyer at the earliest opportunity. That lawyer will be best placed to advise the family on how best to proceed within the existing local legal framework and to address any concerns the family may have about any aspect of the investigation. To that end, each British embassy, high commission or consulate maintains a list of English-speaking local lawyers, to which consular officials will refer family members. However, we do not claim to have an expert knowledge of the legal system of every country in which we operate.

[Rehman Chishti]

Just to clarify the point about not knowing the exact legal systems of the country, does the Minister agree that in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world common sense would dictate that, if someone pleads guilty to murder and it is an agreed fact, that person should be sentenced rather than walk free from court?

[Mr Browne]

Perhaps I should not be drawn on that specific case. All the cases that have been raised both inside and outside this debate suggest that the Indian justice system is failing to provide satisfactory justice to a number of citizens and that must surely give the Indian authorities cause for reflection.