By Mata Press Service

Malkiat Singh Bhandol, the fugitive farmer who led a quiet life in Osoyoos BC after fleeing murder charges in India three decades ago, is back in his homeland. Bhandol was paraded before local media in Ludhiana, Punjab before being whisked off to jail.

Ludhiana Senior Supt. of Police Jaiswal Singh said Bhandol will face additional charges of jumping bail and creating fake identity documents, including a passport.

Two Punjab police officers Harish Kumar and Sandeep Kumar picked up Bhandol from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam earlier this month and escorted the fugitive back home. The South Asian Post in its last issue reported the life and flight of Bhandol to Osoyoos, B.C. which took him through Germany, the Netherlands and a hastily arranged marriage.

Last month, 32 years after the murder, the B.C. Appeals Court ordered Bhandol returned to India to face a justice system that he says has wrongfully pinned the murder on him and his family. Indian police said Bhandol was a teenager when he and his three uncles killed a local man called Teja Singh in the village of Lalton around March 25, 1974.

Bhandol and his three uncles were arrested shortly after Teja’s body was found.

They were convicted a year later for the murder. When Bhandol was released on bail pending an appeal in 1978, he fled to Winnipeg, got married, had two children and obtained his citizenship.

After a divorce, Bhandol remarried and moved his family to Osoyoos B.C. where he operated the SP Farm & Fruit Market at 6218 on Highway 97. He distanced himself from his Indian roots and led a model life while quietly fighting attempts by Indian authorities to get him back to a Punjab court. “(The Bhandols) are an absolutely marvellous family and it’s tragic what has happened to them,” Russ Chamberlain, Malkiat’s lawyer told local media.

Life was quiet, good and prosperous. his kids went to the local schools while his stature grew in the local Sikh community with his charitable acts at the Osoyoos Gurdwara.

The Bhandols’ home, fruit stand, 17-acre mixed fruit orchard and two-acre pond are now worth some $2.09 million, said the local paper.  Bhandol’s true identity was discovered after he was picked up on January 14, 2004 during a RCMP roadside check on Highway 97 in the Osoyoos. His uncles spent about the 20 years in Indian jails for the murder of Teja Singh.

“He was about 16 when the murder took place. He was not involved and was wrongly booked. He fled when he was 20. We didn’t hear anything about him after that. He never called us also,” one of the uncles told the South Asian Post.

The uncles stressed that Bhandol was a minor at that time and had nothing to do with the murder. Bhandol plans to fight the murder charges in India armed with new affidavits from eyewitnesses who have recanted their testimony that he was involved in the murder.

His wife and kids, meanwhile, remain in B.C. after putting up the family farm for sale.