For the entirety of her young life, Harshita Brella – a beautiful, exuberant, thoughtful 24-year-old – hadn’t put a foot wrong.

Academically excellent, she had attended some of the most prestigious schools and colleges in her area and, after completing her teacher training, spent her spare time tutoring underprivileged children free of charge.

‘She loved it,’ her father Satbir Singh tells me today. ‘She was teaching around 18 children in her free time. She enjoyed it so much.’ A beloved daughter and sister, Harshita was inseparable from her family.

‘She was a bit of an introvert; she had that childlike innocence,’ her sister Sonia Dabas remembers. ‘We did everything together, if anyone bothered her, I was ready to fight to protect her.

‘She was the type to stay away from any kind of conflict. She was a soft person, she would go red with nerves if anyone ever raised their voice.’

Yet for all her natural reserve, when the chance came to move to England two years ago – a country which represented opportunity and adventure to Harshita – she jumped at the chance to leave her home in Delhi.

‘She had never even gone to another state without me or our parents,’ her sister says. ‘Of course she was excited. She had dreams. She wanted to make something of herself and help our parents.’

Those dreams, tragically, ended in catastrophe, as her father recalls emotionally in this exclusive interview.

Harshita Brella and her husband Pankaj Lamba, who lived together in Northamptonshire

The 24-year-old's family want justice after her body was found in a car boot in east London

Her family only discovered the full horror of Harshita’s new life some four months after she moved 4,000 miles away to England following an arranged marriage, when her father received a traumatic phone call from his youngest daughter – a conversation he recalls with pinprick precision.

At 5.30am on August 20, 2024 – just after midnight in the UK – his phone rang. It was Harshita, sobbing uncontrollably.

‘I could hear she was running, she was just crying and crying,’ he remembers.

Moments before, she had fled the home she shared with her husband Pankaj Lamba in Corby, Northamptonshire, after what her family says was a violent assault. Frightened and alone, she ran wildly through the deserted streets in the middle of the night, clinging to her phone and the sound of her father’s voice.

‘She said she was running away and had been beaten, and she was trying to save herself,’ he recalls. ‘I told her to keep going and stay on the phone with me. Then I told her to call the police.’

For him, the helplessness was overwhelming. ‘I was very worried,’ he admits. ‘My blood pressure dropped. I felt dizzy. But I didn’t want her to know that I was having problems. I had to stay calm for her.’

That desperate call in the darkness would become a defining moment for Harshita’s family.

Until then she had largely shielded them from the reality of her marriage, enduring her struggles in silence.

The Silver Vauxhall Corsa that was discovered abandoned on Brisbane Road, Ilford, in 2024

Harshita's mother, Sudesh Kumari, at a shrine for their late daughter at the house in Corby

But after fleeing that summer’s night, something changed. Secrets she had carried for months finally poured out. ‘Before that, she shared nothing with us. After it, she told us absolutely everything,’ her sister says.

‘She told me she had cried herself to sleep every single night since moving to England.’

Her mother, Sudesh Kumari, adds: ‘She had hidden everything to save us from worrying. She always thought about us first.’

Over many tearful conversations, Harshita revealed what she said had been a nightmare existence since joining her husband in Corby in April that year.

She accused him of a disturbing catalogue of domestic abuse offences, including violence, sexual assault, coercive control and financial abuse.

Even mundane routines became, she told them, demonstrations of his authority.

‘When he returned from work, he would sit in his car and wait until Harshita came to open the door for him,’ Sonia says. ‘It was as if my sister was his chauffeur.’

The petite newlywed told her family that night she could not go back to her husband because she feared he would kill her. Tragically, those fears would appear to have been well-founded.

The young woman was regularly abused by her husband, according to Harshita's family

Harshita and Lamba on their wedding day. The couple got together in an arranged marriage

Harshita was murdered by strangulation on November 10, 2024, three months after that disturbing phone call. Lamba, now 25, the prime suspect, remains on the run.

In the weeks leading to her death, Harshita revealed many more upsetting details of her life with Lamba, who apparently referred to himself as the ‘king’ of the household and demanded complete obedience, scrutinising her every move, while every pound she spent had to be accounted for.

‘She told me he said: “I am the king here and you will have to follow all the rules according to me, or leave”,’ her sister Sonia, 30, a mother-of-two recalls.

The family also claim Lamba had multiple affairs, disappearing for days, leaving his new bride alone at their home on the town’s rundown Kingswood estate.

‘She would overhear him speaking in English to different women on the phone,’ Sonia says. ‘Sometimes he would vanish for three or four days.’

According to her family, Harshita’s finances were tightly controlled despite becoming the household’s main earner after a rapid promotion to an administrative role at work at a local factory.

Even the smallest of purchases were off limits.

‘She wasn’t allowed to spend even £1 without his permission,’ Sonia says. ‘She couldn’t buy herself lunch or even basic personal care items. She was earning well but had absolutely no freedom to spend her own money.’

One example her sister gave stayed with Sonia. ‘Harshita told me she wasn’t even allowed to buy a razor without his permission. She wasn’t allowed even the most basic women’s grooming.’

It was a far cry from her life in Delhi, where, as the baby of the close-knit family, she was cherished and adored. A foodie, who loved shopping and trying on new clothes and experimenting with make-up, Harshita had a true zest for living.

‘She was a daddy’s girl,’ her sister says. ‘We gave her a very pampered life. She never wanted for anything. We raised her with a lot of love and here she was telling me she was being treated like a servant.’

Indeed, Harshita’s family allege her husband – who was taking a management course at the University of Hertfordshire – had control of her wages.

‘He was just exploiting her for money,’ her mother says. ‘He never gave her a single penny. Once she wanted an ice cream – she always loved ice cream – but he refused and told her “go eat cow dung”.

‘She was either always working or at home cooking for him. He never let her go anywhere.’

The reality of Harshita’s married life was in stark contrast to the excitement which had greeted her wedding just eight months before her death. Satbir, a driver by profession, had proudly given away his youngest child during a lavish ceremony in Delhi.

The marriage had been arranged after being set up through an acquaintance – a proposal rapidly accepted by Harshita’s family, who believed that Lamba, an Indian man studying in England, was a promising match.

Through his relatives, they were given glowing accounts of him, his education and his prospects. After a few months, after a brief meeting at the airport during one of Lamba’s visits home, the pair were married.

Looking back, Harshita’s family believe much of what they were told about Lamba was untrue.

And it was only after Harshita’s death they discovered he had been having a long-running affair with Madhu Pandey, a woman who worked at a spa he visited. ‘Pankaj was not a nice person, he was a very big liar,’ Harshita’s sister says. ‘He had a split personality and was living a double life. We now know he was sending Harshita’s hard-earned money to his mistress the entire time.’

The violent August incident which finally prompted Harshita to flee and confide in her family began with something pitifully small. For the first time since arriving in England, she bought something for herself: a black-and-white T-shirt.

‘He was furious,’ her mother alleged. ‘It was the first and only thing she bought for herself. Poor girl bought one T-shirt and, because of that, got beaten.’

Harshita, at the time, was in the early stages of pregnancy. Within days she suffered a miscarriage. ‘She had become very weak, she was just bones… weighing less than 7st,’ Sonia recalls. ‘She would video call us and try to smile even though she was broken inside.’

One message from her younger sister received in the weeks before her death remains permanently inscribed in Sonia’s memory.

‘She wrote to me: “Look at how I came here and look at what has become of me”.’ Sonia pauses. ‘She had come to England full of dreams and hope, and this was what her life had become.’

Nodding sadly, her father adds: ‘She was completely broken by this time.’

With her family’s backing, Harshita bravely reported the catalogue of allegations to Northamptonshire Police after that beating in August.

Lamba was arrested in September and released on police bail, with conditions not to contact his wife and later issued with a Domestic Violence Protection Order lasting 28 days.

Harshita and her family were convinced she would be safe in the hands of the British authorities – a hope that would be shattered.

‘Harshita was scared but I hoped now she had reported it to the police, she would be safe,’ her father says. ‘But that didn’t happen.’

On November 10, she was strangled to death in Corby. Her body was discovered in the boot of a car abandoned more than 100 miles away in Ilford, east London, days later. The family said despite her allegations, and despite Harshita moving to her own studio flat, Lamba had continued to contact her and demand she cook for him.

On the evening of her death, she had called her family and said he had been pushing for a meeting.

‘After talking to us, she must have gone to meet him. That was the last time we spoke to her,’ Sonia says.

‘She didn’t sound how she used to be before. She was a bit quiet and low,’ her father added.

CCTV released by the police show Harshita and Lamba walking by a local lake on the evening they believe she was killed. When she failed to answer Satbir’s calls later that night, he recalls how he frantically tried to reach her. ‘I was very worried,’ he says. ‘I texted her many times thinking she might not have network and as soon as she did, she will call me back.

‘I was asking her in the texts: “Are you OK?,” he says. ‘I begged her to please just let me know she was OK. But she didn’t.

‘She couldn’t. Because she was already dead.’

Lamba, who boarded a flight to Mumbai the next day, was back in his hometown of Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi before her body was even found three days later.

The discovery sparked an international manhunt, but today, 21 months on, Lamba – who has been charged with her murder and several other offences – remains on the run.

He is believed to still be in India. The family feel deeply betrayed by authorities on both continents.

In Britain, they believe Harshita was failed after taking the brave step of reporting her allegations to police.‘I have heard UK police are among the best in the world, and yet it happened there,’ Sonia says. ‘He allegedly killed her and left the country under their nose with ease.’

The Independent Office for Police Conduct found four officers had a case to answer over their handling of Harshita’s case, two for misconduct and two for gross misconduct.

Despite travelling to the UK earlier this year in search of answers, the family were excluded from a disciplinary hearing in May.

Northamptonshire Police ultimately found the first two officers had no case to answer, while a date is yet to be set for proceedings involving the remaining two.

The family’s frustration extends to India where they believe crucial opportunities to capture Lamba have been missed.

They say he emptied around £1,800 from Harshita’s bank account before allegedly sending the money to his mistress and travelling to India. Despite being wanted, he spent several months in plain sight with his lover in his old neighbourhood.

‘He was running a shop in India; he is withdrawing money in India and still they didn’t do anything,’ her sister says.

He was captured on CCTV at a bank before vanishing with his lover without a trace.

Speaking of the lack of justice for his daughter, Satbir says: ‘I just feel broken but my family motivates me and tells me we have to keep fighting for her.’

Photographs from Harshita’s wedding in March 2024 show a radiant young woman in stunning traditional dress smiling as she prepared for a new life overseas.

Her mother, fighting back tears, adds: ‘We thought she would have a better life in the UK.

‘My daughter was very intelligent, she had so many dreams but those were never realised. The dreams she had… Pankaj didn’t let her fulfil them. From day one.’