india

Updated: Jan 24, 2019 13:37 IST

Nineteen years after 25-year-old Jaswinder Sidhu became the victim of honour killing, her mother and uncle, sought for trial in the case, have finally been extradited to India.

Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha were taken from a facility in British Columbia (BC) and escorted to Vancouver airport by a team of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Thereafter, the team guarded them as they embarked upon the flight to India. They left on an Air Canada flight bound for New Delhi and reached India on Thursday morning.

After the proposed extradition took a dramatic turn in September 2017, the decks were finally cleared to proceed after the legal representatives of the pair did not file an appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada within the mandatory one-month period after a plea for staying the proceedings was rejected by the Court of Appeals in British Columbia last month.

Jassi, as she was better known, had travelled to India from her residence in Maple Ridge, BC, in 2000, and had eloped with Mithu, a marriage that her family did not approve of. Subsequently, Jassi was murdered in what is alleged to be a contract killing at the behest of family members.

Jaswinder Sidhu, a Punjabi-origin beautician from Canada, was allegedly murdered at the behest of her family in 2000 for marrying a man from Punjab against their wishes. ( HT File )

The previous attempt to have Jassi’s mother and uncle extradited was in September 2017, but that ended in dramatic fashion with the two returning to their homes in BC even after being handed over a team of Punjab Police that was to take them from Toronto to India.

After they were surrendered by Canadian authorities, their lawyers’ plea was accepted by the British Columbia Court, although a final appeal before the Supreme Court earlier that year had already been vacated. The three-member Punjab Police team had to return without the accused.

Their lawyers had entered the plea for a stay of the extradition proceedings, but the three-judge BC Court panel denied the motion, though it did conclude that the surreptitious manner in which the 2017 extradition was attempted, without them being allowed to contact their legal representatives, did comprise an abuse of process but didn’t prove sufficient grounds to permit a stay.

A team of Sangrur police, led by superintendent of police (SP investigation) Gurmeet Singh and two senior officials and women staff, reached Delhi late on Wednesday evening to arrest the accused. They were given custody of the duo on Thursday morning. DSP Amargarh Palwinder Singh Cheema said , “The paper work is under process in Delhi. They will be produced in Malerkotla court today .”

With inputs from Avtar Singh, HTC, Sangrur