RCMP officers visit husband of murdered bride in jail

By Mata Press Service
June 14th, 2007

Seven years after Maple Ridge beautician Jaswinder “Jassi” Kaur was killed by members of her family for secretly marrying a man they did not approve of, 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 Sukhwinder Singh alias Mithu is awaiting trial for allegedly raping a village girl - a charge he says was trumped up by his dead wife’s relatives.

RCMP officers Paul McCarl and Amarjit Chauhan filed for access to Mithu in a Punjab court.

This could be the final stages of a lingering extradition request by Indian authorities, who have charged Jassi’s mother and her millionaire uncle for orchestrating the killing.

The mother and uncle live in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

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 her 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 has denied any involvement in the incident.

Indian police have revised their extradition requests at least four times, prior to the visit by the RCMP officers this week.

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.

The Punjab Tribune reported that Mithu and his family, have been waiting “for this day” ever since Jassi was murdered.

The Tribune said that “the tardy extradition process was given wings owing to media outcry in India and signing of a web based petition run by a Canadian newspaper, Asian Pacific Post (www.asianpacificpost.com)”

“The portal has succeeded in channelising the world over outrage in the case through its special section called

''Justice for Jassi (www.justiceforjassi.com)''.

Thousands of people had signed a petition on the net seeking Justice for Jassi, whose parents, the prime accused in the case, were yet to be  tried in a court of law.

The Canada based Asian Pacific Post (www.asianpacificpost.com) is running the campaign for seeking justice in the case,” the Tribune said.

Mithu’s mother Gurdev Kaur and younger brother Gurvinder Singh said he family is facing a serious financial crisis with all their resources spent on fighting the Jassi murder case and the rape case against Mithu.

“No one had come to enquire about our condition for the last one-and-a-half-year when Mithu was booked in a false rape case'' rued Mithu's mother Gurdev Kaur.