NRI receptionist hacked to death in UK for 5,000 pounds bounty

A NRI receptionist was hacked to death in the UK for 5,000 pounds bounty because her husband could not tolerate her leaving him, a court was told today.

28-year-old Geeta Aulakh was left dying in the street in Greenford in northwest London last year because her marriage had broken down and she had signed her divorce petition, the central criminal court in London heard.

The reaction of her husband, 32-year-old Harpreet Aulakh, "displayed a chilling belief, almost certainly culturally rooted, in male unaccountability," prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee said.

Geeta moved to Greenford while Aulakh was in India from January to September last year. The couple started their relationship when Geeta was a teenager. They were married in 2000 and tried to separate twice but was persuaded not to by Harpreet's relatives.

"Geeta was in the process of divorcing him and that would not be tolerated," Jafferjee said.

Harpreet offered 5,000 pounds in a room of Punjabi men for "someone to be murdered" Harpreet offered the bounty because he could not tolerate her leaving him, Jafferjee said.

She was killed by three men who lay in wait for her. Her hand was severed as she tried to shield herself from the blows, he told the court.

Jafferjee said the marriage had broken down for a long time.

"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," he said.

On September 29 last year, just over a month before her death, she had written a Facebook message to her husband in which she said: "I have never hated anyone in my life, but you."

She had finished her day working as a receptionist at Sunrise Radio in Southall, west London, on November 16 last year and was on her way to a childminder in nearby Greenford, where her children were waiting for her, Jafferjee said, adding "She never got to collect them".

"Yards from that address her killers lay in wait. One would and did hack her to death. So savage and determined was this mission, as she sought to protect her head her right hand was completely severed from her arm," the prosecutor told the court.

He said the the man who organised this murder "was none other than her own husband". "No one else could possibly wish this utterly innocent, hard-working woman and mother any harm," he said.