An unhappy young wife who was taken to India by her mother-in-law and then “disappeared from the surface of the Earth” was murdered in an apparent honour killing, a court was told.

Surjit Athwal, 27, a mother of two and a Customs officer at Heathrow, travelled to India to attend weddings in 1998.

Nine years after her disappearance, a jury at the Old Bailey was told that she had been strangled in India, in a killing arranged by her husband and his elderly mother. Her body was never found, and Michael Worsley, QC, for the prosecution, said that the murder had remained a secret because other family members were too scared to speak out.

The court was told that Mrs Athwal met her husband, Sukhdave Athwal, on the day that she married him in 1988. She was 17; the wedding had been arranged by the two families, who were both Sikh.

Mr Worsley described the marriage as an unhappy one. “She . . . had an affair outside her marriage with another member of staff,” he said.

Mr Worsley said that Mrs Athwal had started divorce proceedings and had told friends at work that she planned to set up home with her lover.

The court was told that Bachan Athwal had said that her daughter-in-law “would be severely dealt with” if she persisted with her divorce, which had “disgraced the family”.

In the winter of 1998 the young wife travelled to India with her mother-in-law and attended weddings. Mr Worsley said: “Thereafter, certainly within a few days, she completely disappeared from the surface of the Earth.” According to the prosecution, when Bachan Athwal, now 68, returned alone to the family home in Middle-sex, she said that her daughter-in-law had been strangled.

Sukhdave Athwal, 42, and Bachan Athwal, both of Hayes, West London, deny murder and conspiracy to murder.

The trial continues.

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