india

Updated: Jan 25, 2019 11:30 IST

The investigation of the Punjab Police into the murder of Jaswinder Sindhu alias Jassi in 2000, and affidavits filed by the victim herself convinced the Canadian authorities and courts to extradite her mother Malkiat Kaur Sidhu and maternal uncle Surjit Singh Badesha to India.

Days before attack on her and Sukhwinder Singh Mithu, whom she married against the wishes of her family in March 1999, Jassi had filed an affidavit in the office of the Jagraon senior superintendent of police (SSP) that they faced threat to their life from her mother and uncle.

Jassi flew to India without informing her family when Mithu was arrested by police on the complaint of her Jagraon-based maternal uncle for kidnapping and forcefully marrying her.

“Though we had strong evidence to prove that the conspiracy to kill Mithu and Jassi was hatched by Malkiat and Badesha, Jassi’s statements made the extradition case stronger. Besides filing a notary-certified affidavit before the Jagraon SSP, Jassi had also submitted a similar document in the court of Ludhiana additional sessions judge saying she and her husband could be killed by her family. This testimony by Jassi convinced the Canadian authorities as to who her killers were,” said Swaran Singh Khanna, investigating officer (IO) in the case.

Khanna, who is now SP (detective), Bathinda, was posted as Dhuri station house officer (SHO) when he was asked to probe the case.

Daughter of millionaire parents based in Canada’s British Columbia province, Jassi came on holidays in 1994 to her maternal uncle’s village Kaunke in Jagraon subdivision of Ludhiana district where she fell in love with Mithu, a kabaddi player from the same village.

After the two got married secretly, Jassi left for Canada. Her family came to know about the marriage and they kept her in confinement. In the meantime, Mithu was booked by the Jagraon police for kidnapping and forcibly marrying Jassi on the basis of a forged document purportedly signed by her. But Jassi flew to India and gave a statement in favour of Mithu and started living with him.

On June 6, 2000, Jassi and Mithu were attacked at Narike village of Sangrur district where they had temporarily shifted to his maternal uncle’s house, fearing a threat to their life.

As per the first information report (FIR), the actual plan was to kill Mithu and take Jassi to her relatives’ place and then to Canada. The contract killers thought they had killed Mithu, but he survived.

After attacking him, the hired killers called up Malkiat and made her talk to Jassi. But Jassi threatened her mother that she won’t return to Canada and will narrate the entire story to police. Scared, Malkiat asked the killers to kill Jassi too, the FIR says. Jassi was taken to an abandoned place and was hacked to death with beer bottles. Next day, her body was found in a drain.

Khanna says the Canadian Mounted Police went through the case file and interrogated the contract killers nabbed by the Punjab Police.

“The case file was shared with the Canadian cops at their Chandigarh consulate and they were fully convinced with our probe,” he said.

Also, it was the call detail records running into over 300 pages that proved that the contract killers were in touch with mother and Badesha in Canada before and after her killing.

“For the first six days, it remained a blind murder case as there was no clue about the killers. Mithu was not conscious enough to record his statement as he was attacked with sharp-edged weapons and had received 17 serious injuries. Once he gave his statement and shared Badesha’s number, the call detail records helped solve the case,” Swaran Singh Khanna said.

Surjit Badesha had talked as many as 147 times to the contract killers and other accused four days before the attack, the charge sheet says.