Gurdaspur girl murdered in UK, husband arrested

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, October 31

Relatives of Mehak Sharma (19), who was found murdered at her residence in Croydon in South London, have claimed that her husband had repeatedly been threatening her with dire consequences and, on Sunday, he murdered her.

Mehak was a resident of Jogi Cheema village, 20 km from here. She was married to Gurdaspur resident Sahil Sharma (23) on June 24 last year. The girl, according to her mother Madhu Bala, had gone to London five months after she tied the knot with Sahil.

Sahil is a resident of New Sant Nagar here. He followed his wife to the UK on a spouse visa. Bala said her daughter had told her many times that Sahil had been ill-treating her.

“Mehak used to ring me up every morning. However, on Sunday I did not receive any call. I thought she must be busy. However, when I did not get a call on Monday, I got panicky. I, subsequently, asked my relative, who lives about 150 km away from Croydon, to visit Mehak and inform me accordingly. It was in the evening that he rang me and told me that the London Metropolitan Police had taken Sahil into custody after being charged with murder of Mehak,” said Madhu Bala.

Mehak was working as a caretaker with Fabulous Homecare Limited, a home care provider operating out of Croydon. Bala’s husband, Tarlok Chand, had died a few years ago.

Mehak’s relatives say they have requested Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to make arrangements to bring her body back from the UK.

“I have requested the government to step in and ask the Indian High Commission in London to make preparations to ship the body to India,” she said.

She added that she had got to know that the London Metropolitan Police had asked people living near Mehak’s house to come forward and provide information which could later help them in their investigations.