Is killing falling under the category of a "cultural honour murder" ?

 

Brampton, Jan 09, 2009
Tarlochan Grewal, Toronto

NRI Kamikar Singh Dhillon, stood impassively and listening to a Punjabi interpreter in a Brampton courtroom. He was remanded in custody until Jan. 21.

Suny Virk, lawyer of Kamikar, told court that his client had suffered “substantial injuries” to his neck and would require medical treatment in jail.

Police were looking into the possibility of the killing falling under the category of a "cultural honour murder" involving a Sikh family conflict. Investigators spent hours interviewing Dhillon in the hospital and then later at a police station, before he was formally charged in Brampton court.

A family friend, Manjit Gill said:

• Amandeep Kaur Dhillon hailed from v&po Isru, Dist. Ludhiana. Three years ago, Amandeep was sponsored to Canada by her husband, Gurinder Singh Dhillon in a marriage arranged by their parents. He married her in India. Amandeep had migrated to Canada in 2005.
• She and her husband had just applied to bring her family from India. She loved her son so much.
• Amandeep Kaur Dhillon's cousin Kirandeep from Brampton, Ontatio who is in India now, told media that Amandeep and Gurinder had jointly taken loans for home and store. The store was opened in August 2008 where Amandeep's murdered occured. If any of the joint borrowers dies, the loan is waived by insurance company. Six months ago Amandeep told her:
  • She was not allowed to make telephone calls out side
  • Her father-in-law did not allow her to go anywhere independently, even Gurdwara

Amandeep's family alleged that they had given lakhs of rupees to her husband's family. They are taking care of her son Manmohan Singh who is 22 months old.

Kamikar Singh Dhillon had immigrated to Canada after divorcing his wife Harjinder Kaur. She is staying in Saharanmajra village, Mandi Ahmedgarh near Ludhiana.

According to Sun, Amandeep was counting the days until being reunited with her 18-month-old son, cared for by her parents in India. Instead, her elderly parents were at the Canadian embassy in the Punjab yesterday trying to obtain emergency visas to travel here for their daughter's funeral.

The term "honour killing" shouldn't be brought into the discussion are playing off "political correctness," said Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of Chasing a Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State.

The killings, in which families or communities believe their honour justifies murder, are "a problem" in the Muslim and Sikh communities and merit a separate charge in the Criminal Code, Fatah said.

"This is a different sort of a killing in which the murderer, usually a male, acts in a way which is unconscionable from how we treat gender equality in this society," Fatah said. "There is almost no attempt made (in Canada) to teach people who come from patriarchal and misogynistic societies that women are not the property of men."

Gunraj argued that patriarchy is expressed in all communities across Canada.

"Women still don't get the rights and respect they deserve, women still are being abused at a higher rate,"

Kamikar Singh Dhillon, 47

Amandeep Kaur Dhillon, 22 was stabbed to death and her father-in-law also suffered from non-life threatening injures