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“Forbidden Love” triggers outrage
By Mata Press Service
Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu and her husband Mithu Singh |
The Maryland-based Anti-defamation Sikh Council for Freedom of Khalistan is particularly upset at the ads, which promoted the documentary titled Forbidden Love.
The ads, described as “provocative,” aired during NBC’s coverage of the Michigan primaries, while millions of viewers were tuned to their sets.
The ad showed pictures of the murdered woman, her husband, a sword and the image of Sikh man with a flowing beard.
“This is a very provocative ad and portrays the Sikh community in a negative light,” said Dr. Paramjit Singh Ajrawat, of the council in a letter to NBC.
“I, as community leader and activist request you to reconsider your decision to air this documentary.
“Though we hold NBC in high esteem of giving fair coverage to the Sikh community after Sept 11, 2001 attacks, where many Sikhs were assaulted and murdered, we do not want the public primed negatively against the Sikhs one more time.”
“We appeal to you as law abiding citizens not to portray our community in negative light and not air this documentary as we consider you fair and righteous.”
The documentary was aired last week on NBC affiliate MSNBC.
“The Sikh nation after experiencing and being the victim of a constant barrage of negative propaganda by the Indian Government and intelligence through western media, stand resolute to fight such negative portrayals of Sikhs through legal and righteous channels,” said Dr. Ajrawat, a pain-management specialist.
Ajrawat is one of the major players in the Khalistani movement in North America, which is fighting for Sikh independence from India “and the liberation of the Sikh homeland from Punjab.”
The documentary Forbidden Love retold the story of the murder of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, who secretly married a poor man in India her family opposed.
The NBC documentary was originally made after the murder but was recently updated.
In addition to retelling the story, the documentary featured Vancouver publisher Harbinder Singh Sewak and the deputy-editor in chief of The Province newspaper, Fabian Dawson.
Sewak, who publishes the Asian Pacific Post and South Asian Post, has developed a website called www.justiceforjassi.com, which has attracted thousands of people from around the world to a petition.
Many of the comments are critical of the RCMP, which has yet to move against some of the key suspects who live in British Columbia.
Dawson, who broke the original story in Canada and whose work has been used in three documentaries and a made for TV movie, updated viewers on the extradition and legal processes in the recent remake of Forbidden Love.
“There was nothing in the documentary that can be construed as stereotyping Sikhs . . . it was a documentary about a killing that has shamed our community,” said Sewak.
“Most Sikhs are outraged at the killing and are fuming that the people allegedly connected to it are still walking free,” he said.
Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, or 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 its 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, which was allegedly upset about the secret wedding, has denied any involvement in the incident.
Indian police have revised their extradition requests for the Canadian suspects at least four times.
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.
Last June, 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 Mithu is being held for allegedly raping a village girl — a charge he says was trumped up by his dead wife’s relatives.
There has been no reported progress on the case since RCMP visited Mithu in jail.
Ajrawat insists the facts surrounding the incident on which the documentary is based have not been established.
“Hence it is irresponsible for Bob McKeown (MSNBC reporter) to assert that Jassi’s uncle has killed Jassi,” he said in a statement.
Ajrawat then went on a tirade against the Indian government and western media for portraying Sikhs as villains and terrorists.
“Only two years ago two Canadian Sikhs were exonerated by the Canadian courts who were falsely accused of blowing Air India’s plane in 1985 over the international skies.
“It all happened because of the lobby by Indian Government and Indian Intelligence,” he said.
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