72-year-old woman from US came to Punjab to marry UK-based NRI, 75: How love affair took fatal turn

Instead of a wedding celebration, Rupinder’s fate took a dark turn as she mysteriously disappeared

In a shocking incident, a 72-year-old US citizen of Indian origin, Rupinder Kaur Pandher, was lured from Seattle to Ludhiana in Punjab by a 75-year-old UK-based NRI, Charanjit Singh Grewal, who promised to marry her only to get her brutally murdered by a contract killer in July, police said on Wednesday.

US citizen of Indian origin, Rupinder Kaur Pandher, 72, was lured from Seattle to Ludhiana by a 75-year-old UK-based NRI, Charanjit Singh Grewal, on the pretext of marriage only to be murdered by a contract killer in July, police said on Wednesday. (File photo)

The police said the victim’s US-based sister Kamal Kaur Khaizah had contacted the US embassy in India after Rupinder’s phone was switched off after she travelled to Kila Raipur village in Ludhiana district on her would-be groom’s invitation in July.

Instead of a wedding celebration, Rupinder’s fate took a dark turn as she mysteriously disappeared.

Efforts to trace Rupinder led to the horrifying truth recently and the police registered an FIR naming key suspects, including Grewal and his brother, who are absconding.

Assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Harjinder Singh Gill said that the main suspect, Sukhjeet Singh, alias Sonu, who is from Malha Patti in Kila Raipur, admitted to the brutal murder and setting the body ablaze in a storeroom of his house on the intervening night of July 12 and 13.

The police said that Sonu told interrogators that he had acted on the orders of Grewal, who promised to pay him ₹50 lakh for killing Rupinder.

The contract killer allegedly admitted to destroying evidence by burning the body with diesel inside the storeroom, cooling the remains with water, and then disposing of the remains in a drain near Lehra village. The police have since recovered partial skeletal remains that have been sent for forensic tests to ascertain the victim’s identity.

The police found that Rupinder had transferred large sums of money to the accounts of Grewal and his brother. She was under the impression that the money was for the wedding expenses. Instead, her fortune became the bait in a calculated conspiracy to murder her, ACP Gill said.

Investigators say that financial gain was the primary motive of the crime.Grewal has been named a suspect in the case and efforts are on to bring him to justice. “This case is not just a murder but a horrifying betrayal of trust and human decency,” ACP Gill said.