In the UK, a gay bank worker who strangled his wife to death in an effort to hide his sexuality has been sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Jasvir Ginday, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years for killing Varkha Rani, months after marrying her to hide his sexuality.
According to the court documents, Ginday used a vacuum cleaner pipe to strangle his wife —who was isolated and friendless after arriving in the UK from India— following the arranged marriage.
Authorities found Rani’s remains in the garden of their house in Walsall, West Midlands after their neighbours reported a thick and foul-smelling smoke.
Ginday then told the police that he had been burning leaves, but when one of the officers lifted the lid of the incinerator, there were remains of a skull. Other items were also found including a bangle, a bracelet, inscribe ring, burnt jewellery and paperwork.
The court documents stated that Rani was placed in the incinerator in the foetal position and there was no evidence that she was forced in alive.
“It was a very cruel situation in which you put her,” Judge John Warner told Ginday. “You have told lie after lie about a number of matters such that it is impossible to rely on anything you say.”
“I am satisfied you intended to kill, you are a devious, controlling man and a meticulous planner in a number of aspects of your life,” the Judge added. “Killing her was a dreadful enough thing to have done, but what followed was horrible almost beyond imagining.”
“You behaved in an unbelievably casual and callous way, with a complete lack of any humanity,” he said. “No one who was in court to hear that evidence will easily put out of their minds the image of her body being poked and prodded by you down into that incinerator.”
Ginday allegedly told some close friends but not his family that he was gay and had been afraid of his parents’ reaction, the court stated.
In October 2012, Ginday and his mother travelled to India to find a wife. He then met Rani through a matchmaker just before he was due to fly home and got married.
“No doubt to Varkha’s family the defendant appeared to be a perfect match for their intelligent, well educated and attractive young daughter,” Deborah Gould, prosecuting, said. “Rani arrived in Britain on 10 August 2013 and was “in all senses a stranger in a strange land”.
Ginday quickly realised he did not want to get married but felt he could not get a divorce without suspicions about his sexuality.
The suspect later admitted to manslaughter and perverting the course of justice by trying to dispose of her body, but had denied murder.