NEW DELHI: A woman minister in the Indian state of Punjab was on Friday sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring to kill her pregnant daughter in April 2000. A trial court in Patiala in Punjab, however dropped murder charges before awarding the prison sentence to Bibi Jagir Kaur, a powerful woman leader from Punjab, who is state minister for rural water supply and defense services. Bibi Kaur had been accused of murdering her daughter Harpreet, who had died under mysterious circumstances in 2000, even as her mother had cremated her even without carrying out the mandatory post mortem which is mandatory in unnatural deaths. Kaur had claimed that the death had occurred due to food poisoning. Harpreet's partner had then petitioned the Punjab and Haryana high court claiming that Harpreet had been killed because she was pregnant with his child. Kaur was convicted along with a cop, sub inspector Nishan Singh under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 313 (forcible abortion – causing miscarriage without woman's consent), 344 (wrongful confinement of more than 10 days) and 365 (kidnapping or abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person). Kaur, known as a tough no nonsense politician was also the first woman head of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) one of the most powerful body of the Sikh community in India. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/gOkKb Tags: Bibi Jagir Kaur, India, Murder, Punjab Section: Latest News, South Asia, Women
