In May 1989, an Asian woman set fire to her husband Deepak after suffering his brutality for 10 years. She was charged with murder and imprisoned for life. Following the involvement of the Southall Black Sisters who felt strongly that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, Kiranjit Ahluwalia was released in September 1992. Kiranjit, who told her story in her autobiography �Circle of Light�, became the symbol of Asian women's struggle against domestic violence helping to change social attitudes and encourage people to speak out. This is her story ..

Born into a privileged family in India, Kiranjit comes to England in 1979 to be married to a man she has met only once. The next ten years are a nightmare of almost daily, physical, mental and sexual violence at the hands of her husband.

Isolated by a society in which wife-beating was regarded as a normal part of life, Kiranjit, unable to bear the brutality of her alcoholic husband Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews, Lost) in desperation, she kills the man who had tortured her for so long by setting him on fire.

Bewildered, poorly advised and speaking little English, she is charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In prison, she unexpectedly finds a degree of freedom she had never known in the outside world. For the first time she is safe from beatings and abuse, and is able to make friends. She befriends her cellmate, a wealthy white woman, Veronica Scott (Miranda Richardson) from whom she learns English. Her cell mate is so moved by her story that she asks her step-brother Lord Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane), a highly respected queen�s counsel to file her appeal.

Meanwhile, her case comes to the notice of a motley group of south Asian social workers running an under funded organization called Southall Black Sisters. They bring her plight to the attention of the media by organizing rallies to gather public support for her freedom and a campaign to secure a retrial gathers momentum. Media coverage of her plight has made Kiranjit something of a "cause celebre", and she attracts many prominent supporters. She is ultimately freed by the judicial system in a landmark case called �Regina vs. Ahluwalia�, that redefined the word �Provocation� in the case of battered women.

Ahluwalia, who had her life sentence quashed in 1992 after her guilty plea to a manslaughter charge was accepted, was reunited with her children and subsequently given an award by the Prime Minister�s wife for her crusade against domestic violence honoured at the first Asian Women Awards.

Dismissing any concerns that the casting of a Bollywood beauty and former Miss World as a battered British housewife would turn a serious issue into �entertainment�, LA based Bollywood Director Jagmohan Mundhra defended his decision to cast Ashwariya Rai, who has made a name for herself in the West with her films Bride and Prejudice and Mistress of Spices and being the face of L�Oreal, who had asked to play the lead role, proving her acting abilities beyond playing a �Bollywood Queen�.

Mrs Ahluwalia, who told her story in her autobiography �Circle of Light�, said: "I suffered so long in silence. The reason I want to do the film is the reason I did the book - to expose the culture of silence."