Xubuntu 12.04 Xfce 4.10 unwanted kde packages

I just noticed that updates are downloading a lot of kde packages on my wife's 64 bit Xubuntu. I don't get this with 32 bit Xubuntu on my old laptop which has exactly the same settings for repositories etc. in software sources.
Now she has stuff like akonaditray, nepomuk file indexer, nepomuk backup etc. in her menu.
It will be a pain to get rid of all these unwanted packages one by one.
I have no idea how they got there in the first place.
Should I reinstall or is there an easier more productive way to remove all kde related packages without breaking anything ? Via the Software Center perhaps ?

edit:

Went to software center searched for kde. There were 3 packages; akonadi tray, nepomuk file indexer and kmail. I removed them and then launched Synaptic
to see the residual configs. There were plenty and I removed them as well plus quite a few auto-removables.
All is well, there are no more kde packages, also none found dpkg -l | grep kde.
So I hope all OK. Beats me how they got there in the first place.

 

only think that i can think of is that she installed a program at some point that needed all those KDE dependencies.

Synaptic does a good job of cleaning up leftovers.

hopefully, you have a system image to restore in case things go bad when experimenting with these things.