A forbidden love that crossed religious boundaries ended in tragedy when a woman hanged herself, a Bradford inquest heard.

Heartbroken Kulvinder Kaur, 20, spoke to boyfriend Mathab Ahmed on the phone after wrapping a scarf around her neck and tying it to a window catch.

With her last words, she told him: "I will always love you."

The pair had been told by their families to stop seeing each other because she was a Sikh and he was Muslim.

At the hearing yesterday, Mathab, also 20, said: "Muslim families usually marry within the Islamic rules. There was no way we could get married."

He told deputy coroner Mark Hinchliffe how Kulvinder rang him three times on the night she died in January to discuss their love for each other. During the third call she sounded panic-stricken and said she could not go on seeing him.

She added that she had a scarf tied around her neck and was going to jump off the window sill and kill herself.

"I told her not to be stupid," said Mathab. "I heard the phone drop and heard her choking. I shouted down the phone, but nobody answered."

He called the emergency services and an ambulance went to Kulvinder's home in Wingfield Mount, Bradford. She was taken unconscious to hospital, but died later.

"She had said her family were not happy with it, but she loved me more and wanted to get away with me and get married," added Mathab.

Kulvinder's father, Gurdev Singh, told the inquest: "We are not very religious. It is recommended that we stay in our own religion, but not really compulsory. Marriage is a lifelong thing and it's important to find the right partner. It's more important than any religious links." He said he was a little surprised but not shocked to learn of his daughter's romance. "We had meetings with the other family and decided between us it was not a good thing that was happening. We persuaded her not to carry on with this relationship".

The pair, who both worked for Morris-on's, met around six months earlier.

The inquest heard that they had started going out together and their religious differences meant nothing to them.

The day before she died the couple met for the last time and went to a pub in Idle for a drink and something to eat.

Recording a suicide verdict, the deputy coroner said: "This has been one of the saddest and most tragic cases I have had to think about.

"It seems to me small wonder that she took the view that her family were unsupportive of her own desires, and that she could not be entirely honest with them."

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