Her older sister said: "I know she was punished for not being able to have children ... a man who does this is not human."
"It hurts to think she must have gone through so much pain when taking her last breath," she said.
She said happiness left them the same day Kaur was killed by her husband.
"When I look at my mother my heart cries. I am a mother myself but I cannot imagine the pain she feels. She saw her daughter leave this earth before she did."
Kaur's 76-year-old mum said she wished it was her that was taken and not her daughter.
"I regret that I did not make my daughter understand that it was okay to call the police for help, that it was okay to tell her friends she was being abused by her husband, that it was okay to stand up for herself."
She pleaded that she understood sometimes relationships didn't work but the family gave him several opportunities to travel to India to divorce her.
"I want to ask him if it was easier to kill my daughter than divorce her ... who gave him the right to take away my daughter."
Kaur's older brother said: "I always waited for her to come to India so we could sit together and behave like children again but the beauty is over now."
"Sometimes I feel like it's a nightmare and if I wake up, life will go back to how it was," he said.
"The pain cannot be described in words."
The couple had been married for 10 years and moved to New Zealand in 2013, according to an agreed summary of facts released to the Herald after the guilty plea.
"The killing occurred in the context of domestic problems, aggression, possessiveness, assertion of control, and violence from the defendant towards Ms Kaur," court documents state.
"They were unable to conceive any children, which was a source of tension in their relationship."
Shortly before her death, Kaur had told at least three relatives on separate occasions that she feared her husband would kill her in her sleep. She told a sister that she had been kicked and slapped by Singh and she showed a niece photographs of earlier injuries, which she said were at her husband's hands.
On the evening of Sunday, September 20, 2020, Singh arrived at a relative's home in what was described as a distressed state.
"[Kaur] has had a small attack, and that there is bleeding through her nose," the relative later recalled Singh telling him, adding that he believed Singh's wife had suffered a medical event of some sort.
Singh said he hadn't called an ambulance, so the relative decided to do so himself as the two drove to the couple's Papatoetoe home.
"They went inside and [the relative] saw Ms Kaur lying flat on her back in the lounge," court documents state. "She was positioned on the ground, between the sofa and coffee table.
"There was blood on Ms Kaur's face, around her nose. There was also blood staining on the sofa."
The relative tried to give CPR but was unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later.
A post-mortem exam showed that Kaur had died from neck compression. While the "precise mechanism through which the force was applied is unknown", the report noted "multiple findings" which are "frequently seen n deaths caused by manual strangulation".
Kaur had gone to work at a fast-food restaurant earlier that day and the couple had attended temple together that afternoon and had gone grocery shopping together.
Authorities said the exact circumstances of what led to Kaur's murder remain unclear but it appears an argument ensued that evening after Kaur made a call home to India.
"However, Mr Singh, by his own admission, was the only person present at home with Ms Kaur at the time of her death," the agreed summary of facts state. "Accordingly, he was responsible for the assault that caused her death, even though its precise nature is unknown."
Singh was charged with murder and arrested several days after Kaur's death.
Crown prosecutor Aysser Al-Janabi submitted that Kaur was killed at home by her husband where she should have felt safe.
However, defence lawyer Shane Tait submitted his client was remorseful and had been exiled from his community and family back in India.
Tait said his client did not accept there was domestic violence in the relationship and suggested she had lied to the family.
In Singh's remorse letter, he said that he was sorry for the pain and suffering he had caused.
"You regret your behavior and think about your actions everyday. You say you wish you had controlled yourself. You are disgusted with the way you treated her and ultimately took her life," Justice Tahana said.
She said the Crown submitted remorse was limited as Singh minimised his conduct in the relationship and suggested she made up things.
"I accept that you have shown remorse but there are some matters you have not accepted responsibility," Justice Tahana said.
