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Kiranjit Ahluwalia (born 1955) is an Indian woman who came to international attention after burning her husband to death in 1989. She claimed it was in response to ten years of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. After initially being convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, Ahluwalia's conviction was later overturned on grounds of inadequate counsel and replaced with voluntary manslaughter. Although her submission of provocation failed (under ''R v Duffy'' the loss of control needed to be sudden,〔''R v Duffy'' () 1 All ER 932〕 which this was not), she successfully pleaded the partial defence of Diminished responsibility under s.2 Homicide Act 1957 on the grounds that fresh medical evidence (which was not available at her original trial) may indicate diminished mental responsibility.〔''R v Ahluwalia''() 4 All ER 889〕 The film ''Provoked'' (2006) is a fictionalized account of Ahluwalia's life. ==Background== In 1979, at the age of 24, Ahluwalia left her home of Chakkalal in Punjab to travel to the United Kingdom after marrying her husband, Deepak—a man she had only met once. For ten years, she stated that she suffered from domestic abuse including physical violence, food deprivation, and marital rape.〔 When Ahluwalia looked to her family for help, they reprimanded her, saying it was a matter of family honour that she remain with her husband. She ultimately tried running away from home, but was found by her husband and brought back. During her marriage, Ahluwalia had two sons who she claimed often bore witness to the violence she endured.〔 However, neither boy gave evidence supporting this in court or police interviews prior to the trial. One evening in the spring of 1989, Ahluwalia was allegedly attacked by her husband later accusing him of trying to break her ankles and burn her face with a hot iron, apparently trying to extort money from her extended family. Later that night while her husband lay sleeping, Ahluwalia fetched some petrol and caustic soda mixture from the garage and mixed it to create Napalm. She poured it over the bed and set it alight, and ran into a garden with her three-year-old son. In a later interview she stated: "I decided to show him how much it hurt. At times I had tried to run away, but he would catch me and beat me even harder. I decided to burn his feet so he couldn't run after me."〔 She also claimed: "I wanted to give him a scar like those he had given me, to have him suffer pain as I had." Deepak suffered severe burns over forty percent of his body and died 6 days later in hospital from complications of severe burn and subsequent sepsis. Ahluwalia, who could only speak broken English at the time, was arrested and ultimately charged with murder.〔(【引用サイトリンク】author=Joanne Payton )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kiranjit Ahluwalia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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