“Cold-blooded act, heinous, tragic….”: UK citizen gets life imprisonment without remission for 2022 elderly couple killings

Charanjit considered the couple responsible for the “matrimonial discord” between his sister and her husband, the couple’s son, police said. He accused them of “harassing and ill-treating” his sister, their daughter-in-law.

While pronouncing the quantum of sentence on Monday, the court sentenced the accused to “rigorous life imprisonment without remission” under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC twice, separately for the murders of Sukhdev Singh and Gurmeet Kaur, along with a fine of Rs 50,000 in each case. He was also sentenced to two years of imprisonment under Section 25 of the Arms Act, along with a fine of Rs 10,000.

The elderly couple, Sukhdev Singh (68) and Gurmeet Kaur (65), were found dead with multiple stab wounds caused by a knife and other sharp-edged weapons on the night of May 4, 2022, inside their home in Ludhiana’s posh Bhai Randhir Singh (BRS) Nagar colony. The crime occurred while Sukhdev was on a phone call with his daughter, Rupinder Kaur Panesar, who also lives in Ludhiana.

Investigators said the accused, Charanjit Singh Channi, was the brother-in-law, wife’s brother, of the couple’s son Jagmohan Singh alias Raju, who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Born and brought up in London, Charanjit allegedly held a grudge against the elderly couple for “harassing and ill-treating” his sister Sanpreet Kaur, who was married to Jagmohan Singh.

The elderly couple’s daughter Rupinder Kaur Panesar, also the complainant in the case, told police that she was on the phone with her father when she heard someone knock on the door and her father politely invite him inside. Moments later, she heard screams over the phone and, on rushing to the couple’s BRS Nagar residence, found them dead in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds.

Police said Charanjit had arrived in Ludhiana from London in January 2022 and had since been living at his in-laws’ house in Jasdev Singh Nagar of Gill village. He is a graduate of Guildhall University, London. Police told the court that Charanjit claimed the elderly couple used to “ill-treat” and “harass” his sister Sanpreet Kaur. As they were scheduled to visit Scotland again in a few days, he feared that his sister would once again be harassed, following which he planned to murder them.

On the night of May 4, 2022, Charanjit reached the couple’s residence when Sukhdev was on the phone with his daughter and was politely let in. An argument later ensued after Charanjit accused the couple of ill-treating his sister. The tiff soon escalated, with Charanjit pulling out a knife and stabbing the couple multiple times until they died. He then scaled the compound wall of the house and fled, police told the court.

The court observed that the crime began with the “initial hospitable entry” of the accused, with Sukhdev telling him that “they would sit and talk”, followed by a “sudden and violent outburst” that ended in two killings.

Pronouncing the conviction, the court said in its order: “The prosecution has woven a ‘garland of circumstances and a chain of evidence’ so complete that there is no escape for the accused. The chain begins with the deceased welcoming the accused by name (Channi), followed by the accused being seen scaling the walls by neighbours, and ending with identification by a known witness.”

The court, however, declined the prayer of the prosecution to treat the case as the “rarest of rare”, and said: “The deceased were elderly individuals who posed no physical threat to the convict. The murder was a ‘cold-blooded’ act executed at night within the sanctity of the victim’s residence. The brutal killing of one’s own relatives shocks the collective conscience of the community. However, the convict does not have a history of violent crime prior to this incident, suggesting he is not a ‘hardened criminal’. While the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has mandated that capital punishment must only be a last resort. In the present case, while the crime is undoubtedly heinous and tragic, it does not reach the extreme threshold of ‘extraordinary depravity’ or ‘viciousness’ that characterises the ‘rarest of rare’. Justice is best served by a sentence that is proportionate to the gravity of the offence but adheres to the corrective philosophy of law. This court declines the prayer for the death penalty and instead imposes a sentence that reflects the severity of the loss of two human lives.”

“…the motive of the offence was that Sanpreet Kaur, sister of the accused, was married to Jagmohan Singh, son of the deceased couple, and they had matrimonial discord and strained relations. The accused murdered both the parents of Jagmohan Singh on the whim that they were responsible for the discord,” the order said.

Advocate Parupkar Singh Ghumman, counsel for the victim couple’s family, said: “The act of the accused was so barbaric that the court ordered conviction without remission, which means that he must serve the entire period of sentence without any possibility of early release on any grounds. He will remain incarcerated for his entire natural life. He had especially travelled from the UK to execute the murders and conducted multiple recces of the elderly couple before stabbing them multiple times with a knife.”

Sukhdev Singh was a former Central Public Works Department (CPWD) officer and Gurmeet Kaur was a homemaker. The FIR for the double murders was registered at Ludhiana’s Sarabha Nagar police station on May 5, 2022.