Kiranjit Ahluwalia

The story was fictionalised in the film Provoked, which was screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Naveen Andrews played Deepak and Aishwarya Rai played the role of Kiranjit. During the screening at Cannes, Kiranjit sat next to Rai, holding her hand and sobbing during the most violent scenes.

The film Provoked (2006) is a fictionalised account of Ahluwalia's life.

Kiranjit was honored in 2001 at the first Asian Women Awards in recognition of her "strength, personal achievements, determination and commitment" in helping to bring to light the subject of domestic violence.

Her case eventually came to the attention of the Southall Black Sisters who pressed for a mistrial. Kiranjit's conviction was overturned on appeal in 1992 on grounds of insufficient counsel—Kiranjit had not been aware that she could plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. In addition, it was brought to light that she was suffering from severe depression when she lashed back at her husband, which her new counsel argued had altered her decision-making abilities at the time. After the mistrial was declared, the Crown Prosecution Service did not attempt another prosecution.

One evening in the spring of 1989, Kiranjit was allegedly attacked by her husband. She later accused 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, Kiranjit 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.

Kiranjit was convicted of murder in December 1989. At the trial, the prosecution argued that although on the night of the event she had been threatened with a hot poker, the fact that she waited until her husband had gone to sleep was evidence that she had time to "cool off" and weigh to a nicety her actions. In addition the prosecution claimed her prior knowledge to mix caustic soda with petrol to create napalm was not common knowledge and was proof that she had planned her husband's murder. Her counsel did not make any claims about the violence she later claimed she had endured, while the prosecution suggested that Kiranjit was motivated by jealousy due to her husband's repeated affairs. She was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In 1979, at the age of 24, Kiranjit left her home of Chak Kalal in Punjab to travel to the United Kingdom after marrying her husband, Deepak—a man she had only met once. She stated that she had suffered from domestic abuse for ten years, including physical violence, food deprivation, and marital rape.

Kiranjit Ahluwalia (born 1955) is an Indian woman who came to international attention after burning her husband to death in 1992 in the UK. 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, 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.