Shocking Betrayal: US Widow Lured to Punjab for Marriage, Murdered and Cremated by Fiancé

Ludhiana, Punjab – In a chilling case of greed and deception, a 71-year-old American woman of Indian descent was brutally slain just days after landing in India to wed her 75-year-old British fiancé, authorities revealed Wednesday.

The victim, Rupinder Kaur Pandher, had flown from Seattle at the behest of Charanjit Singh Grewal, a non-resident Indian from Ludhiana now residing in England. What began as a long-awaited union ended in horror when Grewal allegedly orchestrated her murder, police from Ludhiana said.

The grim discovery unfolded after Pandher vanished in July, a detail that only surfaced publicly this week through a fresh FIR naming key suspects. Her sister, Kamal Kaur Khairah, first raised alarms on July 24 when Pandher’s phone went silent. Four days later, Khairah contacted the US embassy in New Delhi, prompting swift intervention that urged local officers to investigate.

It wasn’t until last week that the family learned the devastating truth: Pandher was dead. Acting on Grewal’s orders, Sukhjeet Singh Sonu, a resident of Malha Patti village, confessed to luring her to his home, strangling her, and incinerating her body in a storeroom to destroy evidence, according to investigators.

Sonu, now in custody, reportedly received a promise of Rs 50 lakh from Grewal for the hit. The underlying trigger? Financial exploitation. Prior to her trip, Pandher had wired substantial funds to Grewal, fueling suspicions of a cold-blooded scheme to eliminate her after securing the payout.

Deputy Inspector General Satinder Singh of the Ludhiana Police Range confirmed Grewal’s role as the prime accused, though he remains at large, possibly fled abroad. “We are intensifying efforts to locate him,” Singh told reporters.

Forensic teams are scouring Sonu’s property based on his statements, hoping to recover Pandher’s skeletal remains and corroborate the timeline. The case has stunned the Punjabi diaspora, highlighting vulnerabilities faced by NRIs in cross-border relationships.

Ludhiana Police continue their probe, vowing justice for a woman whose dream of companionship turned into a nightmare of betrayal.