‘Distraught’ Kiwi Indian Navtej Singh’s widow says living life of dead person

WELLINGTON - The widow of Indian-origin south Auckland liquor storeowner Navtej Singh, Harjinder Kaur, has described the impact of her husband’s killing by saying that she is living a life of a dead person.

An intoxicated Antilea Chan Kee (21) shot Singh at his Manurewa liquor store on June 7, 2008. He had been handing over cash to the robbers at the time he was shot. Chan Kee has been sentenced to life imprisonment for killing.

Kaur told Chan Kee’s sentencing hearing in the High Court at Auckland that her family is still struggling.

“Although it looks like we’re living our lives, in reality our lives have been destroyed. It’s as if I’m living my life as a dead person and there is so much pain in my heart. My life has been destroyed. All my dreams have been shattered,” the NZ Herald quoted Kaur, as saying.

Kaur wondered if Chan Kee knew what it meant to separate a husband from his wife, a father from his children and a son from his parents.

Singh was a hardworking man and a loving father. She said their three daughters, aged 7, 5, and 2, still asked where their daddy was as they stood in front of his picture.

The oldest child has asked her mother “why daddy got shot even though he was giving the money. Why did they shoot him?”

Kaur tried to run the family liquor store after the murder but the children never wanted her to go there.

She told the court her grandfather died of shock the day after the killing when he heard the news, and her husband’s father, Nahar Singh, was so overcome with grief that he tried to kill himself by jumping from an overbridge. He fractured his limbs when he landed on the Southern Motorway.

The suicide attempt came after he watched a video of his son’s funeral service. (ANI)