Jassi Sidhu’s mother and uncle sent to police remand in India

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Punjab Police to question them about the plot to kill Jassi Sidhu

The Canadian Bazaar

TORONTO: The mother and the maternal uncle of Indo-Canadian woman Jassi Sidhu, who was killed by contract killers in Punjab in 2000, were sent to police remand for four days in Punjab after they were extradited to India.

Punjab Police took the custody of Malkit Kaur Sidhu, 70, and Surjit Singh Badesha, 75, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at New Delhi airport on January 24.

They were produced in a court in Malerkotla ( where Jassi was killed) which sent them to police remand for four days. They will be produced before the same court after their interrogation by police.

The mother and the uncle had planned contract killing of Jassi Sidhu, 25 then, in June 2000 for marrying a man against their wishes.

Jassi, who was born at Maple Ridge near Vancouver in 1975, met kabbadi player and rickshaw driver Sukhwinder Singh (Mithu) in Jagraon and fell in love with him during her visit to Punjab in 1996. She had gone there with her mother.

She returned to Punjab in 1999 and secretly married Mithu in his village Kaunke Kalan on April 15, 1999, before returning to Canada.

A year later when she again came to India to bring Mithu to Canada, she was murdered on June 8, 2000, near Mithu’s village when the couple were going on a scooter. They were waylaid by four hired contract killers. Mithu survived, but Jassi was murdered.

Jassi Sidhu with-Mithu-whom-she-had-married-secretly
Jassi Sidhu with Mithu.

The original plan was to kill only Mithu and bring Jassi back to Canada. But the contract killers left Mithu after dead and called Jassi’s mother in Canada to tell her that they had killed Mithu. They then made Jassi to talk to her mother on the phone. But Jassi threatened her mother that she will expose her to the police. That’s when Malkit Kaur Sidhu told the contract killers to eliminate Jassi.

Punjab Police investigations confirmed it was an honour killing plotted by Jassi’s mother and uncle sitting in Canada by hiring contract killers for Rs 700,000.

Police presented huge evidence, including 266 phone calls with the hired killers, against Badesha. India formally requested Canada in 2005 to extradite Baadesha and Malkit Kaur Sidhu to face trial.

An court convicted seven people in 2005 for Jassi’s murder.  But three were acquitted in 2008.

The mother and the maternal uncle were taken in custody by the police in Canada in 2012 and they have been successfully fighting their extradition till the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Vancouver rejected their application to stop their deportation in December 2018.

In fact, the two were about to put on an Indian-bound plane at Toronto airport in September 2017 when their lawyers managed to stop their extradition by filing for a review of the order of Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to deport them. Their lawyers argued that the two could face torture and inhumane conditions in Indian jail.

But on December 11, Appeal Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman and Justice Sunny Stromberg-Stein dismissed their request for a judicial review of the minister’s order.

The judges said, “The minister was right to express concern for an effective, expeditious extradition process and respect for the principle of finality.

“It was reasonable for the Minister to conclude that it was in the interests of justice to surrender the applicants.’’

READ ALSO: Jassi was pressured to marry an old man

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