Nine years after 40-year-old businessman Ekam Singh Dhillon’s body was found stuffed inside a suitcase in the back seat of his BMW outside his rented accommodation in Phase 3B1, a Mohali court sentenced his wife, Seerat Kaur, now 44, to life imprisonment for his murder.

Besides life imprisonment for murder and a fine of ₹50,000, the court sentenced her to three years’ rigorous imprisonment each for destruction of evidence and possessing the illegal firearm used in the crime. All sentences will run concurrently.

The murder had allegedly taken place on the intervening night of March 18 and 19, 2017.

According to the victim’s brother, Darshan Singh Dhillon, who is the complainant in the case, he had reached Ekam’s rented accommodation after receiving information about some untoward incident.

There, he found his brother’s BMW parked outside with blood stains near the rear door. When police opened a suitcase lying on the rear seat, Ekam’s body was recovered. A post-mortem later confirmed that he had died from a gunshot injury.

During trial, the prosecution relied on the testimony of the couple’s son, Gurniwaz Singh, who was 11 at the time of the incident.

Gurniwaz told the court that he had seen his mother remove a pistol from a locker on the night of the incident.

He also recalled an argument between his parents over a man named Nimrat before his father returned home. Later that night, he heard his father’s scream followed by a gunshot but found himself locked inside another room from outside.

Soon after her arrest in 2017, Seerat claimed she had acted in self-defence after an argument with her husband and later refused to undergo a lie-detector test, telling the court that she had already admitted firing the shot.

The prosecution alleged that Seerat had murdered her husband to usurp his properties