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Jassi’s kin to stay in jail pending hearing
The mother and uncle of murdered bride Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu will stay in jail until their extradition hearing expected in the next few months.
The Maple Ridge residents are facing conspiracy to commit murder charges in India in connection with the death of Jaswinder (Jassi) Kaur Sidhu in 2000 after she srcteley married a man whom the family opposed.
B.C. Supreme Court ruled last week that Malkit Kaur Sidhu, 62, mother of Jaswinder, and Surjit Singh Badesha, 67, Jaswinder’s uncle, both of Maple Ridge, will stay in detention. The pair was arrested in January under the Extradition Act.
Federal prosecutor Deborah Strachan, acting on behalf of the Indian government, said the pair waged a campaign of terror against Jassi, after they found out that she had violated “family honour”, which ultimately resulted in her kidnapping, torture and death.
Strachan said that they should stay jail because of the possibility of them intimidating witnesses.
The duo were arrested after three journalists – two in Vancouver and one in India – released a fact-based account of the murder in a book called Justice for Jassi and waged a long internet campaign on justiceforjassi.com.
“This is a good decision and a right one to ensure that the administration of justice is not tarnished by intimidation or bribery,” said Harbinder Singh Sewak, publisher of the South Asian Post and co-author of the book.
The book’s lead author is Fabian Dawson, a Vancouver based journalist and filmmaker, who was involved in exposing the so called ‘honour killing’ since 2000 and Jupinderjit Singh, a reporter with Tribune newspaper in Punjab.
Jassi Sidhu was kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed on June 8, 2000, shortly after she married Sukwinder (Mithu) Singh Sidhu, a poor rickshaw driver her family did not approve of.
Her husband was left for dead. Over the last decade there have been several attempts to kill him and he spent four years in jail on a false rape charge engineered by Jassi’s relatives.
The book, Justice For Jassi documents the entire international saga of forbidden love and is narrated from the perspective Mithu, who since his wife’s death a decade ago has refused to re-marry and has continued fighting to see justice done for his wife.
The authors scoured through thousands of police and court records in Canada and India, as well as hours of tape interviewing officials. The book shows how her mother and uncle orchestrated Jassi’s murder from here in Maple Ridge – where they continue to live, until recently, despite being charged in Indian courts for conspiracy to commit murder.
Seven others have already been convicted in India for charges including murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, in relation to the case.
For more information on the book and the case go to justiceforjassi.com
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