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Jassi (Jaswinder) Kaur Sidhu was murdered on June 8, 2000

Saurinder Singh, Ludhiana, Dec. 01, 2007

Source: Justice for Jassi

 

August 4, 1975: Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu is born in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

1977: Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu , also known as Mittoo, is born the Punjab, India.

1991 and onwards: The village of Kaonke, in the Punjab, becomes a stronghold of the Sikh militancy. Police round up boys in large numbers. Mittoo is one of eight picked up on suspicion and taken to the CIA office of Joginder Singh. He is brutally interrogated for a week. A local politician finally gets him released.

1992 onwards: Mittoo plays Khabaddi, an athletic form of team tag. He plays 10 to 12 tournaments a month, earning very small amounts of prize money.

1992: Police arrest Mittoo for a second time. He is beaten severely enough so that he is forced to stop playing khabaddi for 6 to 7 months.

1993: Mittoo begins his career as an auto rickshaw driver, a very low-paying kind of work.

1993: Mittoo begins playing khabaddi again and becomes a local star.

1995: At age 19, Mittoo meets Jassi who is visiting the Punjab from Canada with her mother, her maternal aunt and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha. It is love at first sight. A friend of Jassi's agrees to be a go-between for the mismatched lovers. They meet privately at Romi's house and take oaths of living and dying together.

1995-99: Home in British Columbia, Jassi writes letters to Mittoo, sent to him via a friend. They also arrange to speak on the phone.

January – February 1999: Jassi's family goes to India for three months. The purpose of the visit is to arrange a marriage for Jassi. She turns down all of the suggested matches.

March 15, 1999: Jassi and Mittoo marry secretly at a temple in Ludihana in the Punjab and spend their first night together in a hotel.

April 19, 1999: Jassi registers the marriage in India. Rumors begin to spread about the secret wedding. Jassi's family is told that she has married a poor man, but Jassi denies the story.

June 1999: Jassi's family finds out about the marriage and demands that she divorce Mittoo. The mother and the uncle beat Jassi. Jassi's mother and uncle, saying they are going to buy a car for her, convince her to put her signature on a blank piece of paper

February 9, 2000: Back in Canada, Jassi tries to arrange immigration for Mittoo. Jassi sends a letter to Ottawa telling Immigration officials that her uncle might try to give them false information about Mittoo which he later does.

February 10, 2000: Jassi's uncle, Surjit, has affidavit drawn up that says that Mittoo and his friends forced Jassi, at gunpoint, to marry Mittoo. The uncle uses Jassi's signature that he obtained from her under the pretence of buying her a car to validate the complaint. Jassi is confined to her Uncle's home in Maple Ridge, B.C.

February 23, 2000: Eleven days after receiving the affidavit from Jassi's uncle, Indian police begin to investigate Mittoo and his friends, Bindri and Surinder Kumar for kidnapping Jassi. The two friends, Bindri and Surinder, are arrested and held illegally for four days. Surjit Singh Badesha arrives from Canada and beats the men while they are in custody. Mittoo is forced into hiding and calls Jassi, begging for help. Her uncle promises Mittoo he will help him come to Canada if he divorces Jassi. Mittoo refuses.

March 8, 2000: Jassi sends a fax to Indian police refuting the story of her kidnapping.

March 13, 2000: Jassi faxes a letter to Indian police telling them she fears for her and for Mittoo's safety. Mitto is found by Indian police and arrested.

April 3, 2000: Jassi goes to the RCMP in Maple Ridge, B.C. after being threatened and hit by her uncle.

April 4, 2000: Jassi has a new passport issued in Surrey, B.C.

April 6, 2000: Jassi calls the RCMP and is escorted out of her family home. Family members outside yell insults at her.

April 13, 2000: Jassi leaves for India.

April 19, 2000: The Judge grants bail to Mittoo and he is released from jail.

April 26, 2000: Jassi's uncle begins calling Darshan Singh, a wealthy local businessman in the Punjab. Darshan Singh's daughter later marries Surjit Singh Badesha's son.

June 7, 2000: Jassi's mother learns that the pair are in hiding at the home of Mittoo's grandparents. She calls them there and speaks to Mittoo and Jassi. Jassi believes the call is a peace offering and tells her mother where they will be during the next few days.

June 8, 2000: The day after the phone call, they are attacked by a gang. Mittoo is badly beaten and left for dead. He is found and taken to a hospital Ludiahna and tells police that Jassi was kidnapped.

June 8, 2000: Jassi is taken to a farmhouse outside Ludihana where she told that her husband is dead. One of the kidnappers, Ashwani Kumar talks to Jassi's mother and uncle by cell phone in B.C. According to Indian police, Jassi's mother orders Ashwani Kumar to kill Jassi.

June 9, 2000: Jassi's body is found, her throat slit, in an irrigation ditch.

June 10, 2000: The Indian newspaper Ajit publishes a photo of Jassi. Mittoo's relatives identify her and claim the body.

June 18, 2000: The first newspaper coverage of the story appears in British Columbia. Indian Police seize weapons, cars, mobile phones from the men suspected of kidnapping and killing Jassi.

July 9, 2000: Indian police announce Jassi's murder is a contract killing and arrest 11 men.

July 11, 2000: Indian police issue arrest warrants for Jassi's mother and uncle.

January, 2001: Mittoo fears for his life. Gunmen shoot at his house attempts are made to run him down in the street.

October, 2001: the fifth estate investigates Jassi's murder and broadcasts its documentary, The Murdered Bride. At that time, the RCMP in British Columbia, told the fifth estate that they had no jurisdiction over crimes committed in India.

January 2002: RCMP confirm to the fifth estate that they do have the jurisdiction to investigate. Spokesperson Danielle Efford says: "To conspire in Canada to commit a murder elsewhere is against the law and a crime here in Canada."

2003: RCMP spokesperson Grant Learned refused to confirm or deny that there is any investigation.

June 2005: RCMP spokesperson John Ward tells the fifth estate that there is an ongoing investigation, but declined to provide any specific details.

2004: Mittoo is arrested and charged with the rape of a servant of Darshan Singh, a serious charge for which bail is rarely granted. Mittoo's lawyer, Ashwani Chaudhray, says the charges against Mittoo are false. Mittoo, however, remains incarcerated, awaiting his trial.

October 21, 2005: Seven men are convicted in plotting and killing Jassi, including Darshan Singh and former police officer Joginder Singh and Ashwani Kumar who slit Jassi's throat. They are given life sentences for Jassi's murder and the attempted murder of Mittoo. Indian authorities say that Jassi's uncle and mother got away with murder.


RCMP visit Jassi's husband


RCMP officers visit husband of murdered bride in jail

By Mata Press Service
June 14th, 2007

Seven years after Maple Ridge beautician Jaswinder “Jassi” Kaur was killed by members of her family for secretly marrying a man they did not approve of, two RCMP officers from Canada visited the woman’s husband to record a statement.

The statement was recorded at the Ludiana jail in Punjab where Jassi’s husband Sukhwinder Singh alias Mithu is awaiting trial for allegedly raping a village girl - a charge he says was trumped up by his dead wife’s relatives.

RCMP officers Paul McCarl and Amarjit Chauhan filed for access to Mithu in a Punjab court.

This could be the final stages of a lingering extradition request by Indian authorities, who have charged Jassi’s mother and her millionaire uncle for orchestrating the killing.

The mother and uncle live in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

Jassi, who graduated from high school in Maple Ridge was 25 when she was kidnapped, beaten and strangled to death on June 8, 2000.

Her body was found in a canal 45 kilometres from Kaonke Khosa, Punjab, where she had moved with her new husband, Mithu, three months earlier. The kidnappers had left Mithu for dead after attacking him with swords and sharpened sticks.

Shortly after Jassi's body was found with her throat
slit, Indian police alleged that family members, including her mother and uncle in B.C., paid thugs up to $50,000 for the hit.

Indian police in court papers allege that the order to kill "came from Canada" after Jassi pleaded for her life over the phone from an abandoned farmhouse.

They have charged Jassi's mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha both of Maple Ridge, with conspiracy to commit murder.

The wealthy Maple Ridge farming family has denied any involvement in the incident.

Indian police have revised their extradition requests at least four times, prior to the visit by the RCMP officers this week.

Eleven others, including another uncle of Jassi's in India, an Indian police inspector and the leader of a local gang, were arrested in connection with the case. Several of them have been convicted.

The Punjab Tribune reported that Mithu and his family, have been waiting “for this day” ever since Jassi was murdered.

The Tribune said that “the tardy extradition process was given wings owing to media outcry in India and signing of a web based petition run by a Canadian newspaper, Asian Pacific Post (www.asianpacificpost.com)”

“The portal has succeeded in channelising the world over outrage in the case through its special section called

''Justice for Jassi (www.justiceforjassi.com)''.

Thousands of people had signed a petition on the net seeking Justice for Jassi, whose parents, the prime accused in the case, were yet to be tried in a court of law.

The Canada based Asian Pacific Post (www.asianpacificpost.com) is running the campaign for seeking justice in the case,” the Tribune said.

Mithu’s mother Gurdev Kaur and younger brother Gurvinder Singh said he family is facing a serious financial crisis with all their resources spent on fighting the Jassi murder case and the rape case against Mithu.

“No one had come to enquire about our condition for the last one-and-a-half-year when Mithu was booked in a false rape case'' rued Mithu's mother Gurdev Kaur.


Justice for jassi

Her name was Jassi Kaur Sidhu. She was shy, modest and stunningly beautiful. She came to the Punjab with her wealthy Canadian family looking for a little adventure.

During a visit to the village where her parents were born she met and fell in love with the man of her dreams, Mittoo Singh Sidhu. But, Mittoo had no money and no land. His only income came from driving an auto rickshaw.

Jassi knew that her wealthy Canadian family would never approve of Mittoo, so the couple married in secret. When Jassi's uncle found out he was enraged. In his eyes Jassi had disgraced and dishonoured her family.

A TRAGIC DEATH
A few months after the marriage, Jassi and Mittoo were ambushed by a gang of men. Mittoo was left for dead. Jassi was kidnapped, brutally murdered and on June 9, 2000 was found in an irrigation ditch with her throat cut. The Indian police eventually charged 13 people in the murder plot, including Jassi's mother and uncle in Canada.

Phone records showed that the killers had been in constant contact with Jassi's uncle in the weeks before Jassi's death, including phone calls on the very day Jassi died. The police say that the final order to kill Jassi had been given by Jassi's own mother during a cell phone on the evening of June 8.

So, an unlikely romance between a wealthy girl from Canada and a poor villager from the Punjab turned into a modern day Romeo and Juliet story complete with betrayal, treachery, torture, kidnapping and murder. In 2001, the fifth estate went to India to investigate Jassi's murder and produced an award-winning documentary called The Murdered Bride.

THE FIFTH ESTATE RETURNS TO INDIA
This updated version of The Murdered Bride reveals shocking new details about the five-year-old murder case. The fifth estate team and associate producer Akhil Gautam track down two of the men who took part in the murder conspiracy including a police officer named Joginder Singh.
While Indian police and Indian justice, two systems notorious for their corruption and slowness, have dealt with Jassi's murder and convicted 7 men for her murder, the fifth estate reveals that the Canadian investigation into her family's involvement is dragging on.

And in a dramatic confrontation with Jassi's uncle, Surjit, Bob McKeown asks him to explain how 147 phone calls were made from his phone to the convicted killers just prior to Jassi's murder.

But, what of Mittoo, who survived the attack by Jassi's killers? Five years after her death, Mittoo is in jail, facing a charge of rape – a charge his friends and supporters say is completely false. The fifth estate reveals that the woman who has accused Mittoo in court documents is closely connected to one of Jassi's convicted killers.

JASSI'S STORY: A MOVIE

Before she died Jassi told a close friend in British Columbia that a movie would be made about her life one day and now they have. Murder Unveiled, inspired by this true story of this modern day Romeo and Juliet tale, will air on Monday February 6, 2006, at 8:00 p.m. on CBC-TV.


No one deserves to be killed for love

Mon, February 27 2006
Justice for jassi

A petition that seeks Justice for Jassi who was murdered by her family after traditional values clashed with love.

Beautician Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu from Maple Ridge, British Columbia was kidnapped, tortured and killed in June 2000.
Her body with the throat slit was found in a ditch, 45 kilometres from the village of Kaonke Khosa in Punjab.

The popular 25-year-old Canadian, called “Jassi” by her friends was punished because she went against her family’s wishes and married the man she loved - Sukhwinder "Mithu" Singh, a poor auto-rickshaw driver.

Police say her desperate pleas to her family in Canada over the phone while she was being beaten by contract killers at an abandoned farmhouse were ignored.

Shortly after Jassi's body was found Indian police alleged that family members, including her mother and uncle in B.C., paid thugs up to $50,000 for the murder.

The order to kill, police say "came from Canada". They have charged Jassi's mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha both of Maple Ridge, with conspiracy to commit murder.

The wealthy and connected Maple Ridge farming family has denied any involvement in the incident but has acknowledged they opposed the marriage on cultural grounds.

So far only the secondary players in the crime – seven of them including an Indian police officer and another of Jassi’s uncle – have been convicted after a trial that spanned five years.

They have told the court they were hired for the deadly retaliation. Another four accused were acquitted.

But the alleged masterminds, Jassi’s mother and uncle in Maple Ridge remain free despite being charged with murder by Indian authorities in 2000.

Frustrated Indian police have revised their extradition requests to Canada at least four times.

The RCMP, Canadian Foreign Affairs and The Department of Justice will only say is that the file remains active. There are now justified fears that the alleged architects of the crime could get away with murder

In the meantime, Jassi’s husband Mithu who was left for dead by the assailants the day his wife was kidnapped is languishing in an Indian jail on charges that he raped another woman.

There is strong evidence that he was framed by parties involved in Jassi’s murder to extract revenge.

The Asian Pacific Post has been in the forefront of reporting the Jassi murder case. Hundreds of readers who have been following the story via our newspaper and online editions have written expressing their outrage at the lack of justice for Jassi and Mithu


Husband of murdered B.C. bride charged with rape

Mon, August 23 2004
Justice for jassi

Sukhwinder (Mithu) Singh
Family and lawyer say he was framed to derail the Indian murder trial of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, a Maple Ridge beautician who was kidnapped, tortured and killed after going against her family's wishes to marry the man she loved.
Maple Ridge beautician Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu paid with her life after going against her wealthy family's wishes and secretly marrying the poor man she loved in India.
Now just as her murder trial in India is nearing a conclusion, the man Jaswinder married and the key witness in the case--Sukhwinder "Mithu" Singh--has been charged with raping a girl from his village.

The family is alleging that the rape charges are false and the incident has been orchestrated by the accused in the murder case to derail their on-going trial.
If that is proven to be true, this will be second time Mithu has been falsely imprisoned after his secret 1999 marriage to Jaswinder, known to her friends as Jassi.
"It is a fabricated case to derail the trial...He was framed and we have asked the highest authorities in Punjab to investigate this false arrest," Ashwani Chowdury, Mithu's lawyer told The Asian Pacific Post.

"A police officer was offered a big bribe to help the accused in the trial just recently before this false rape case," Chowdury said in a telephone interview, adding the family has taken the matter up with the office of the Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh.

Chowdury read a statement by Mithu's mother Sukhdev Kaur: "We are paying the price for fighting for justice in this country. My son and I have spurned offers of even Rs 1 crore (about C$280,000) to settle the Jassi murder case and this is what we get in return"

"He was trapped by his enemies who live here and Canada. The trial in the murder case is near completion and we are hoping that justice will be done."

Rajiv Ahir, the senior superintendent of police in Jagraon, Punjab was quoted by an Indian news agency saying that Mithu had "confessed" to the crime in police custody but that the confession had no legal binding.

Mithu denied the charges when he was produced in court.

The rape charges add a new twist to a sensational cultural murder which has been developed into three documentaries and has hogged headlines around the world.

Jassi, who graduated from high school in Maple Ridge was 25 when she was kidnapped, beaten and strangled to death on June 8, 2000.

Her body was found in a canal 45 kilometres from Kaonke Khosa, Punjab, where she had moved with her new husband, Mithu, three months earlier.
The kidnappers had left Mithu for dead after attacking him with swords and sharpened sticks.
Shortly after Jassi's body was found with her throat slit, Indian police alleged that family members, including her mother and uncle in B.C., paid thugs up to $50,000 for the hit.

Indian police in court papers allege that the order to kill "came from Canada" after Jassi pleaded for her life over the phone from an abandoned farmhouse.

They have charged Jassi's mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha both of Maple Ridge, with conspiracy to commit murder.

The wealthy Maple Ridge farming family has denied any involvement in the incident.

Indian police have revised their extradition requests at least four times. The latest was in May where Punjab's top cop met with a representative of the Canadian High Commission in India.

Eleven others, including another uncle of Jassi's in India, an Indian police inspector and the leader of a local gang, were arrested in connection with the case.

Their trial before Additional Sessions Court Judge G.S. Dhiman in Sangrur, Punjab is nearing conclusion, after Mithu and the police officer credited with breaking the case, Inspector Swaran Singh testified recently.
In May, Mithu told The Asian Pacific Post in India that he feared for his life as he was constantly being confronted by people associated with the accused.

A court in India ordered police protection for Mithu and gave him permission to carry a gun after his house was raked with gun fire and his friends attacked.

"I can never feel safe here," he said, adding that he has been approached to drop the case by parties offering him large sums of money and promising to help him immigrate to Canada.

In 1999, after Jassi's family had found out about the couple's secret marriage, they filed a police report in India falsely claiming Mithu had compelled her to marry him to gain access to her wealth.

Forced marriages are a criminal offence in Punjab.

Mithu was arrested and jailed until Jassi managed to get a notarized letter to Indian police to state that she had married on her own free will.

"I was threatened by my family and was then physically forced by them to sign the letter stating that our marriage was null and void," wrote Jassi to Indian police.

The head of the Jagroan police district at that time Jaskaran Singh, who received the letter, accused Jassi's family in Canada of faking the police reports which led to Mithu's arrest.


Source: Justice for jassi

 


 

 

 


NRI Jassi was a young beautiful lady that fell in love with a young handsome man in India. Their downfall was that he was poor.They were in love. That's all that matter

  • Jassi Kaur Sidhu was shy, modest and stunningly beautiful. She came to the Punjab with her wealthy Canadian family looking for a little adventure.
  • During a visit to the village where her parents were born she met and fell in love with the man of her dreams, Mittoo Singh Sidhu. But, Mittoo had no money and no land. His only income came from driving an auto rickshaw.

Jassi's uncle Surjit told officials that Jassi was forced to marry Mittoo at gunpoint and had him investigated for kidnapping.


According to Indian police Jassi's mother gave the killers instructions to kill her.


Darshan Singh insisted that he had nothing to do with Jassi's death