- As Ramandeep cooked dinner, she knew it was her husband’s last meal
- She poisoned the rice dish as part of an evil plan with her lover
- By morning, her husband Sonu was dead in bed
On the night of September 2, 2016, Ramandeep Mann cooked up a meal for her family.
Ramandeep, 38, had been married to her husband, Sukhjit Singh, who was known as Sonu, then 34, for 11 years. The couple were on holiday in India visiting Sonu’s mum near Delhi. With them were their two boys, Arjun, then nine, and Aaron, seven.
But as Ramandeep cooked a traditional biryani rice dish that night, she had murder in mind.
Unbeknown to her family, she mixed sleeping pills into the fragrant meal.
Then, while everyone in the house slept soundly that night, knocked out by the drugs, the next stage of her violent plan unfolded.
By morning her husband was dead. He was found in a pool of blood with his throat slit.
Perhaps Ramandeep intended to blame an intruder for her husband’s death, and escape suspicion herself. It would have been easy to do.
To friends, the couple appeared to be happy.
Poisoned dinner
They’d married for love – it hadn’t been an arranged marriage – and Sonu was said to ‘worship’ his wife and shower her with gifts.
Who would suspect her?
She hadn’t counted on one thing though – Arjun hadn’t eaten enough of the spiked dish to sleep through the attack.
So while the rest of his family were in a deep sleep, he woke and saw his mother smothering his father with a pillow.
But Arjun, who’d been sleeping in the same room as his father, hadn’t just seen his mum attacking his dad, he saw she had help.
He watched as their family friend Gurpreet Singh entered the room and hit Sonu over the head with a hammer before handing Ramandeep a knife. She then slit Sonu’s throat.
Sonu, knocked out by the sedatives, had no chance to defend himself. Terrified, the little boy pretended to be asleep. But why would Gurpreet agree to help kill his oldest friend?
And why would Ramandeep want to tear her family apart with such tragic consequences?
During investigations, police discovered Gurpreet and Ramandeep had begun an affair a year before when he’d met up with the family in Dubai for a holiday.
The pair had fallen for each other and planned for Gurpreet to come to India to help with Sonu’s murder.
Life insurance payout
Once Sonu was dead, the pair could be together and enjoy the hefty life insurance payout.
The day after the murder, Arjun told his grandmother what he’d seen and police arrested Ramandeep Mann. They caught up with Gurpreet Singh at the airport as he tried to board a plane to Dubai.
In October 2023, an Indian court heard how, some time after 10pm, Mann let her lover into the property, before they killed Sonu. Prosecutors claimed the pair planned to run away and start a new life using Sonu’s $3.8 million life insurance policy.
Then Arjun, the key witness, gave his testimony about what he’d seen his mother and her lover do.
Mann denied she’d killed her husband. Her defence was that she was being framed by Sonu’s family. She alleged they wanted him dead over his plans to sell land, which she claimed they strongly opposed.
However, British-born Ramandeep Kaur Mann, 38, was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.
Gurpreet Singh was sentenced to life in jail with a fine of $5500 after admitting his part in the murder. He said the pair had been motivated by Sonu’s ‘abusive behaviour’ and ‘drug use’.
In the Shahjahan District Court, Justice Srivastava said, ‘It wasn’t just one man who died that day. The childhood as well as the youth of two minor children was exterminated. The incident has killed the trust of a son in his mother.’
‘I’m rotting in jail’
However, Mann maintained her innocence.
‘I have suffered a miscarriage of justice. I haven’t done anything wrong, she said.
She told Mail Online: ‘I was framed and now I’m rotting in this jail.’
For Arjun, now 17, the heartbreak he and his brother feel continues to run deep. They now live with their paternal relatives.
‘There are not many children who watch their mother kill their father and then give evidence about it. How do you try and get on with your life after something like this?’ he told Mail Online.
‘I’ve got justice for my father. My brother and me don’t think of this woman as my mother anymore. She’s evil.’
Ramandeep Mann maintains her innocence and is appealing her sentence.
Compiled by Alice Frank
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