FRIENDS and family of Sikh TV executive Gagandip Singh who was beaten and left to die in a burning car are appealing against the sentence of the attack’s ringleader.

A petition has been set up and Mr Singh’s family has applied to the Attorney General Dominic Grieve QC to look again at the six-year sentence given to 20-year-old Mundill Mahil, of Maidstone Road, Chatham.

A friend who met Gagandip while she was studying law at university in Birmingham, and who asked to remain anonymous, said: “It grossly trivialises the seriousness of the offence, and the fact that as a direct result of Mahil’s actions a 21-year-old man had his life snatched away from him under horrific circumstances.

“Mahil’s sentence is completely disproportionate to that of her co-defendants in relation to central role she played in this attack.”

Medical student Mahil, who was found guilty of GBH with intent, lured Gagandip back to her student house in Brighton last February in revenge for what was described as an “attempted rape”.

He was beaten and dumped in a car by 20-year-olds Darren Peters and Harinder Shoker.

The car was driven to Angerstein Lane in Blackheath in the early hours and set alight. Gagandip died of smoke inhalation.

Peters of Shooters Hill Road in Blackheath was sentenced to 12 years after being found guilty of manslaughter and Shoker, of Charlton Park Lane in Charlton was given a life sentence with a minimum of 22 years after being found guilty of murder.

Peters and Mahil will serve half in prison and the other half on licence.

The friend, 24, described Gagandip, of Langdale Crescent in Bexleyheath, as “good-natured” and “humorous”.

She said he established the British Sikh Students Federation in 2008 and became its president, was an avid human rights activist and launched the station Sikh TV in October 2010.

She said: “Had Gagandip’s life not been so callously snatched away, he was undoubtedly destined to go onto do big things.”

Join the campaign on the Facebook page Justice for Gagandip Singh and sign the petition at ipetitions/petition/appealing-six-year-sentence-for-gbh-with-intent.