Murdered Brit-Indian bride was not officially married

LONDON - Anni Diwani, the Brit-Indian bride who was murdered during her honeymoon in Cape Town, was reportedly not officially married to Shrien, according to authorities in Britain and Sweden.

According to the Daily Mail, Anni was still Miss Hindocha when she died.

“The marriage registration was not going to happen until March next year, when Anni had her birthday in Britain and they switched rings, which is our custom,” the authorities said.

The British High Commission in Delhi has also confirmed that the marriage was never registered in India, and therefore would not have been recognised in either Britain or Sweden.

According to the paper, the case has further been made complicated by a letter, which was not signed but ‘the devoted friends and acquaintances of our beloved Anni’, said that she knew Nigeria and Kenya well, contradicting Shrien’s suggestion that she had never been to Africa before.

The letter also suggested that the Mumbai ‘wedding’ ceremony, was apparently planned so carefully by Shrien that it is not even recognised as a formal marriage in law, the paper said.

“It is beyond comprehension that Anni suggested seeing “the real Africa” in such a dangerous area at such a late hour. She was an intelligent and smart girl. We believe the South African investigation may be a whitewash, and Anni’s demise is highly mysterious,” the letter reads.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s media had recently reported that Shrien ‘will be arrested and charged’ in connection with Anni’s murder if he returns to the country.

Twenty-eight-year-old Anni was shot dead when she and her new husband Shrien were hijacked by robbers as their taxi drove through a notorious township in Cape Town. Shrien was released unharmed.

Earlier Anni’s father, Vinod Hindocha, had claimed that his daughter was crying and had refused to sit next to her husband on their honeymoon flight. He also alleged that his son-in-law and South African police had kept him in dark about the investigation process, and added that Dewani should go back to Cape Town to identify the culprits. (ANI)