11:09 PM CST on Thursday, March 11, 2010
By JESSICA MEYERS / The Dallas Morning News
jmeyers@dallasnews.com
Minal Bhagat's life ended on a suburban street between Fantasia Drive and Cinderella Lane.
Police say the 36-year-old woman was shot to death by her husband in their Plano home Wednesday night while her two young children and mother were inside.
Her husband, Barinder Singh, 47, was arrested north of Houston several hours later. Police have not identified a motive.
Neighbors and family friends are still absorbing the shock of a violent end to the Indian couple's relationship.
"I know they were having a little trouble, maybe because it was a love marriage," rather than an arranged marriage, said Babita Dhaliwal, a longtime family friend.
She hadn't seen the pair in recent months, but had known them since they moved from California almost 20 years ago. She'd met Singh's mother on a trip to India and often stopped in on the couple when visiting an aunt's house nearby.
She still remembered the two hosting a surprise birthday party for her at their house.
"They were both so good. I don't know how this happened," she said.
Neighbors called 911 around 9 p.m. after hearing an argument and gunfire, Plano Police Department spokesman Rick McDonald said.
Bhagat was found dead near the front door of her home in the 4300 block of Lansbury Lane, near Spring Creek Parkway and Coit Road.
Singh, who goes by the nickname Pappu, was arrested around 3 a.m. in Montgomery County.
The two children, a 9-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy, were interviewed as witnesses. They showed no signs of abuse or neglect and are staying with relatives, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
The central Plano neighborhood was quiet Thursday morning, hours after choppers circled the area in search of the gunman. Police asked residents to stay in their homes through much of the evening so they could canvass the streets with dogs.
Plano investigators retraced their steps for clues outside the two-story brick house the couple had owned for 11 years. They were as lost to a motive as anyone else.
"It's a husband and wife," McDonald said. "Who knows what is going on?"
Renuka Shah, co-owner of Richardson's Taj Mahal Imports, held a tissue to watery eyes and explained that she and her husband had been up all night trying to comfort family members and make sense of the shooting. Bhagat worked at the grocery store for more than a decade, and Singh was a former employee.
"She was very loving, caring – always thinking of everybody else," said Shah, who runs the shop with her husband. "She didn't know how to say no."
Shah's husband spent the afternoon with Bhagat's mother. Shah said they were all part of the "Taj Mahal family."
When asked why the shooting occurred, she just shook her head.
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