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