Charity to be launched in name of murdered NRI

A charity to support vulnerable children and elderly people will be launched in the name of a British-Indian businessman who was murdered during a trip to India earlier this year, according to a media report.

The Ranjit Singh Power Foundation Trust will be launched on Monday in a ceremony at the Ramada Park Hall in Britain's Wolverhampton city to commemorate Power's 55th birthday, the Birmingham Mail reported.

The trust will be kick-started with a 25,000 pound donation from Power's partner Angela Bir, who said the children with cancer in Britain as well as orphanages and poor families in India would be beneficiaries from the trust.

The NRI hotelier was on a business trip to India in May this year when he disappeared. He was last seen in Amritsar on May 8.

His family in Britain feared that he was kidnapped and offered 25,000 pounds for information about his whereabouts.

However 10 days after Power's disappearance, police said the NRI was murdered by his friend and business partner, Baldev Singh Deol, and his partner's driver Sukhdev Singh at Anandpur Sahib in Punjab's Ropar district.

Sukhdev confessed to have participated in Power's murder but Deol returned to Britain after allegedly committing the crime, according to police. The process for extradition of Deol from Britain was initiated.

The body was thrown in the Bhakra canal in Ropar, some 80 km from Chandigarh, and could not be recovered.

Both Sukhdev Singh and Deol were booked under the Indian Penal Code. A property dispute was believed to be the cause of the crime.