Thaindian News

London, Sep 3 (ANI): Indian-origin shopkeeper, Gurmail Singh, was battered to death in his own shop by a gang of robbers in Britain’s Cowcliffe area of Huddersfield, after he denied giving away his ‘hard-earned money’ to them, West Yorkshire, prosecutor Adrian Waterman told Bradford Crown Court on Thursday.

“Gurmail Singh did not meekly hand over his property, his hard-earned money. When he resisted the robbers they used serious violence on him, grabbing the nearest weapon to hand, which happened to be bottles of wine he sold in the shop,” the Daily Mail quoted prosecutor Waterman, as saying.

“He was hit on the head. It was that which caused his death,” Waterman told the jury of nine woman and three men and added: “This was a robbery gone wrong.”

The alleged members of the gang, Umare Aslam, 20, Muawaz Khalid, also 20, 18-year-old Shoaib Khan, Nabeel Shafi, 18, and Rehman Afzal, 18, all from Huddersfield, have denied the murder charge.

Waterman told the jury how smokers outside a pub opposite the shop realised something was wrong when they saw two of the robbers - Afzal and Aslam - walk and then run from the scene.

One of them trapped the robbers inside by holding the door closed as they tried to smash their way out.

Two other members of the public tackled the pair when they eventually fled through the shop’s back door, but both got away.

The court heard that one of the accused, Khan, had not been in the shop because there was no room for him in the taxi that had taken the rest of the gang to the scene.

But Waterman said: “It is the crown’s case that each of these defendants was, at the very least, involved in a joint enterprise. They were in it together and each was responsible, criminally, for his death.”

Singh was allegedly attacked at about 8.30pm on February 20 and died the following day.

Sixty-three-year-old Gurmail Singh had come to England from India in 1963 and raised his family in Huddersfield. (ANI)