| Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 August 1975 Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada |
| Died | 8 June 2000 (aged 24) Kaonke Khosa, Ludhiana, Punjab, India |
Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, also known as Jassi (August 4, 1975 - June 8, 2000) was a Sikh beautician in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, who was the victim of an honor killing. She was kidnapped, tortured, and killed on the orders of her mother, Malkiat Kaur and her uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, near Kaonke Khosa, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.[1]
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On a visit to the city of Jagraon, Ludhiana in the Punjab state of India in December 1994,[1] Jassi met and fell in love with Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu (nicknamed Mithu), a Rickshaw driver. They kept in touch over the next four years. In 1999, Jassi made another trip to India with her family. This trip was for the purpose of arranging a marriage for her. Instead, she and Sukhwinder married secretly on March 15, 1999. Her family strongly disapproved of this marriage, supposedly because he was of a lower caste than her, and they attempted to persuade her to get a divorce by beating her and offering to buy her a car.[1]. When those attempts were futile, her family persuaded her to sign a form, falsely telling her that by signing, they will help Sukhwinder come to Canada. Instead, the form was filled with accusations against Sukhwinder. When Jassi discovered that she had been betrayed, she faxed a letter to the Indian Officials stating that the accusations in the form sent earlier were false.
Jassi escaped from her family confinement with help from the RCMP, who escorted her from the residence. She got money from a friend to buy a plane ticket, and flew to India on May 12, 2000, to reunite with Sukhwinder. On June 8, Jassi and Sukhwinder were kidnapped by killers hired by her uncle. Sukhwinder was violently beaten and left to die, while Jassi was taken to an abandoned farmhouse where she was brutally murdered. On June 9, 2000, her body, with the throat slit, was found dumped in an irrigation canal 45 km from Kaonke Khosa.[2] The killers were in contact with Kaur and Badesha by phone, and it was determined by Indian Police that Kaur gave the order to kill Jassi.[1]
Seven of the killers were tried and convicted, the result of an aggressive investigation by Inspector Swaran Singh. Attempts have been made to extradite Kaur and Badesha from Canada to India to stand trial, but the extradition has been stonewalled by Canadian and British Columbia authorities.[3] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canadian Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice will only say that the file remains active. Former British Columbia Attorney General Geoff Plant, when interviewed by an NBC reporter, had little to say about the case.
Sukhwinder was accused of rape in August, 2004 and was incarcerated in the Ludhiana Central Jail for four years until he was acquitted. The woman who made the accusation is connected to Jassi's family. After his acquittal, Sukhwinder was elected panch of Kaunke Khosa.
The story of Jassi and Sukhwinder is the subject of Murder Unveiled, a made-for-TV movie.