'I've been framed': British mum facing hanging for murdering husband with drugged biryani speaks out from squalid jail
28 October 2023, 09:18 | Updated: 28 October 2023, 09:24
A British mother who is set to be hanged in India after drugging her husband's meal with sleeping pills before slitting his throat has claimed that she has suffered a "miscarriage of justice".
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Ramandeep Kaur Mann, 38, was found guilty of murdering her husband Sukhjit Singh by putting the sleeping pills in his favourite meal - a biryani - before slitting his throat while they were on holiday in September 2016.
Sukhjit Singh, who owned a business back in the UK, bled out in his mother's home in Delhi, India.
The couple's nine-year-old son witnessed the crime and testified against his mum in court.
But Mann denies committing the crime and says that she has been set up by his family to stop him selling some land he owned.
Speaking from an overcrowded prison in the Shahjahanpur District Jail in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, she said: "It's horrendous, it's like being in hell- both this prison and the bigger situation that I find myself in.
"It's the worst thing that has happened to me. I feel so alone, I haven't made any friends in here and I just keep myself to myself.
"The food and the conditions are really awful. I don't speak to anyone, and I don't want to do anything. I just spend the whole day sitting around crying.
Crying, Mann told MailOnline: "I have suffered a miscarriage of justice. I haven't done anything wrong. I was framed and now I'm rotting in this jail.
"There's nobody helping me, I'm all alone here. I can't begin to tell you how horrendous this whole thing is. I'm not good at all. Please, somebody help me."
She added: "Nobody from the British High Commission has come to visit me since I've been convicted. My parents were here but they've now gone back to the UK.
"When I heard that I had been sentenced to death I was in such shock that I didn't know what to say. I still can't believe what's happening to me. But I want people to know my story. There are no words to describe what a bad situation this is for me."
Mann shares the overcrowded prison with 55 other female inmates, as well as seven children belonging to them. Over 1,000 men are housed in a separate section.
Food is meagre, and the shared toilets are dirty. Prisoners wash themselves with a tap and a bucket. Mann is allowed four phone calls per month, and she cannot phone her parents in the UK.
Jail Superintendent Mijaji Lal said: "We are doing our best to look after her because we understand that things must be very difficult for Mann.
"We're encouraging her to take up a sport like badminton or run English classes for the other inmates."
After he was drugged with the sleeping pills, Mr Singh was hit over the head with a hammer in what is considered to be a love-triangle murder.
Mann was helped by her lover Gurpreet Singh, who got in on a plan to claim Mr Singh's £2million life insurance policy.
"[Their son] told the court how his mother and Gurpreet killed his father in his sleep in their house," government lawyer Shree Pal Verma said.
"During the investigation, it came to light that the woman was in a relationship with Gurpreet and they had planned to murder Sukhjit."
Verma went on: "He woke up to noise in the room and saw his mother sitting on his father’s body and smothering him with a pillow."
It was also revealed in court that Gurpreet hit Mr Singh over the head with a hammer, while Mann slit his throat.
Mr Singh, who previously worked for Argos, met delivery driver Gurpreet some time before.
Mr Singh's mum said she was "relieved" by the sentencing.
