THE family of a Blackburn woman who was poisoned to death by her husband today demanded the death sentence for the "evil" killer.

Shagufta Iqbal, 23, of Park Avenue, was found murdered at her husband's family home in Mirpur in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

She had arrived in the country with her two-year-old son Daanyal to visit her husband Fayaz Ahmad, who she hoped could secure a visa and come and live in Blackburn.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted earlier this week of poisoning her, in March.

It has now been revealed that he had previously been refused entry into Britain because of a conviction for murder in his home country.

Today Shagufta's mother, Kalsoom Iqbal, said the former Pleckgate High school pupil had been in Kashmir for three weeks when she was killed.

She said her family had endured a three-month battle with Ahmad's family after Shagufta's death before Daanyal was returned to the UK.

And she revealed that her husband is out in Kashmir trying to increase Ahmad's sentence to a death penalty.

Days before her death she said her daughter had made a distressing phone call home.

"She spoke to my sons and said her husband would not allow her to come home. My husband decided we should go out there but the same day we received a phone call saying she was dead."

She said: "He was evil and didn't deserve her. People say everything has to go on but I cry 20 times a day."

"We are not happy with sentence and want a death penalty.

"Everybody dies at sometime but he planned it and did not give a thought for his children. He hasn't got a heart. In the end he wanted her dead because he couldn't get a visa but that wasnt her fault. She was a good child and loved her family to bits."

Mrs Iqbal blames herself for her daughter's death because she did not scrutinise the background of the man her daughter married in an arranged marriage in 1999.

"I do blame myself, I should have looked into it. My daughter could have complained but she said 'If you are happy mum then I am happy with it'. With arranged marriages you do not know these people. They may be very, very nice to you but you don't know who they are. These people can act."

She added: "We applied four times for a visa for him but he was refused by The British Embassy who said he was a danger to the public."

She said the Embassy's snub was a reference to a previous murder conviction with her son-in-law "already serving nine months for murder."

The Foreign Office has refused to comment but a government source confirmed his visa refusal was connected to "his previous conviction."

And Mrs Iqbal said she would never forgive the killer or his family for organising her daughter's burial.

He said: "She was born in Queen's Park, she belongs here but thanks to them I could not even her bring her back. Those people don't know what they have done to me. Things are never going to be the same."

Her daughter, she said, had been a dutiful wife, travelling to Kashmir twice a year to see the man she loved.

"She was a good wife, a good daughter, a good sister and a good friend. She always had a smile on her face and tried to help everybody. She could have left him (Ahmad) but she wanted to wait for him and to get his visa. He was evil but she loved him."

Mrs Iqbal praised the British Embassy and Pakistani police for helping in the successful three month legal fight to get her two year-old grandson, Daanyal back from Ahmad's family.