Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu

Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, also known as Jassi (August 4, 1975 - June 8, 2000) was a beautician in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, and was kidnapped, tortured, and killed, on the orders of her mother, Malkiat Kaur and her uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, near Kaonke Khosa, Punjab, India.

Background

On a visit to the Punjab state of India in 1995, 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, and attempted to persuade her to get a divorce by beating her and offering to buy her a car.

Kidnapping and murder

Jassi escaped from her family confinement, 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 hired killers. Sukhwinder was left for dead, and Jassi was beaten and stabbed. The killers were in contact with Kaur and Badesha by phone, and Kaur gave the order to kill her.

Trial

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 Fact|date=April 2007 by Canadian and British Columbia authorities. 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.

References

* [http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/murderedbride/ The Murdered Bride] "The Fifth Estate" Documentary by CBC Television.

External links

* [http://www.justiceforjassi.com/ Justice for Jassi]
* [http://imdb.com/title/tt0758922/ Murder Unveiled] The movie based on her life.