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Trend of NRI’s hiring contract killers alarming
Indian police say they will seek to extradite an Indo-Canadian man, thought to be from Surrey, B.C., in connection with an attempted contract killing of his wife in Punjab.
A case of attempted murder has been registered against two hired assasins, while the woman's husband, Gurjit Singh, has been charged with hatching the conspiracy from Canada.
Indian police said, while the plot hatched by the Canadian Non-Resident Indian (NRI) to eliminate his wife with the help of contract killers failed, Harpreet Kaur, a government schoolteacher in Raunta, Punjab is in serious condition in hospital.
Harvinder Singh, a police officer told Indian media: ''As per Harpreet's statement, Gurjit returned to Canada after marriage, promising to arrange passage for her soon. But he seemed least interested in calling her there.''
The NRI's wife told police that he had probably hired contract killers to get her out of his way.
His decision not to take Harpreet to Canada once they had tied the knot led to their relations getting soured and Harpreet began living with her relatives in Ludhiana.
She used to commute to the school in her Toyota Innova from Ludhiana every day.
Sitting at her daughter's bedside at a hospital in Ludhiana, Harpreet's mother Baljit Kaur was quoted as saying: "We never thought our son-in-law would act this way, we suspect he may have married again.''
Harpreet's colleagues said she was feeling let-down by her husband's behaviour, and they were not on good terms.
Moga District Senior Supt. of Police Inderbir Singh said, ''If the husband is involved in hiring killers to eliminate Harpreet, we will make efforts to get him extradited and arrest him."
Harpreet sustained gunshot injuries on her right eye and right leg and had been rushed to the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital for treatment where her condition was said to be critical but out of danger.
The cases is the latest in a string of contract killings and attempted murders of Indo-Canadians and other Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in Punjab.
Indian police and legal experts tell the South Asian Post that the worrying trend is rising because the culprits believe that India cannot extradite them.
In many of the cases, poorly paid Indian policemen play a role in the killings or help cover-up evidence after getting paid in overseas dollars.
In most cases, broken marriages, illicit affairs and property disputes are the main reasons why NRIs are ordering people killed.
The killings are carried out in Punjab and not in the adopted countries of these NRIs because of the lax laws in India.
The money involved in each contract killing, according to police officials, is anything between C$5,000 to C$125,000.
Over the last few years, there have been at least two dozen contract killings involving NRIs in Punjab.
Most of the cases occurred in Punjab’s Doaba belt — the land between the Sutlej and Beas rivers comprising the districts of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr — where most of Canada’s South Asians hail from.
“NRIs sitting abroad think that they can get away with it by getting the crime committed in Punjab through contract killers,” Jalandhar range deputy inspector general Narinder Pal Singh, was quoted as saying in the South Asian Post in a expose on the contract killings two years ago.
“They are wrong.”
Here are some of the other contract murder cases involving Canadian NRIs in India:
In November 2005, police allege that Vancouver businessman Bachan Singh Kingra was hacked to death by two hired assassins. The killers were allegedly hired by his oldest daughter, Balwinder Kaur, who was irked by her 64-year-old father’s plan to get a new bride, have a son and give him the family land over her.
In July 2007, Indian police arrested Calgary resident Jagtar Singh Mallhi, 32, who had orchestrated a fake car crash with the help of hired killers to murder his wife. He was allegedly upset that his wife would not consent to his illiterate cousin getting married to her university-educated sister.
In August 2003, Canadian doctor Asha Goel was the victim of a brutal beating death in Mumbai, India. There had been a rift among her siblings over a multi-million-dollar inheritance. Dr. Goel, 62, was chief obstetrician at the Headwaters Health Centre in Orangeville, Ontario.
In January 2008, Indian police alleged that a Surrey family hired a group of contract killers for about C$3,000 to kill Ranphool Singh of Mundiya village after he failed to come up with the promised Rs30 lakh rupees (C$76,000) dowry for his daughter. Police arrested the contract killers while they were on their way to commit the murder.
The latest case also comes as the Jassi Sidhu murder case hits the courts in Vancouver.
Jsssi was killed by contract killers allegedly hired by her mother and uncle from Maple Ridge in B.C. in 2000.
It took more than 11 years for police to finally arrest the pair. They are currently in jail pending an extradition hearing in Vancouver.
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