‘Jassi fell in love, and for that she was killed’; a first-hand account of an honour killing case

By Fabian Dawson, Editor of Vancouverdesi.com

This column was originally published after Jassi Sidhu’s mother and uncle were arrested last January.

When I first saw Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, she was on a pedestal, framed in a high-school graduation picture, surrounded by grieving relatives.

The menfolk were upstairs, while the women sat on the ground near the entrance of a palatial home comprising 25 rooms, 19 bathrooms and six kitchens. The family compound, valued at $2.6 million, across from Jerry Sulina Park in Maple Ridge, had spectacular views of the Coast Mountains.

It was a June Saturday in 2000, shortly after Jassi, as everyone called her, was found dead in a rural ditch outside the industrial metropolis of Ludhiana in Punjab, India.

She had been raped and tortured before a sword, inscribed with the words “Satnam Waheguru” to denote the one true god of Sikhism, was used to slit her throat.

I have been to many of these “next-of-kin door knocking sessions” during my career as a journalist. This was nothing exceptional and the scene at the home was as expected.

What was unexpected were the constant unsolicited assertions by Jassi’s uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, who kept insisting to me: “We did not kill her . . . I have told them [the police] our family is not involved in any way.”

Fuelled by the denials, my in-built suspicious nature went into high gear and it did not take long for the full extent of this tragedy of forbidden love to hit the headlines in The Province.

Today, after 10 trips to India, scores of interviews, three documentaries, a made-for-TV movie, a website called justiceforjassi.com and the book Justice for Jassi, Badesha and Jassi’s mother, Malkiat Kaur Sidhu, sit in a jail awaiting our justice system to determine whether they can be sent to India to face trial.

Based on my investigations, I have long suspected that these two are the architects of the crime. But we will let the courts affirm that.

It is not often that a journalist is able to stick with one story for close to 12 years. I am glad that I did.

I never met this young vibrant woman who was so full of love and murdered because of it. But I know her very well.

Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu was born Aug. 4, 1975, in a clan where men are in charge of family honour and women are blamed for tarnishing it.

Her birth, being a girl child, was unremarkable. In fact, it was only officially registered more than a year later, on Aug. 17, 1976, by her parents, who were more in tune with another of their newborns, Jassi’s brother.

Jassi’s mother, Malkiat Kaur, and father, Bakhtaur Singh, were part of an exodus from Punjab’s Doaba region to the Canadian West Coast that began at the turn of the 20th century and continues today.

Members of Jassi’s clan eventually settled down in the Fraser Valley, also known as Canada’s Doaba, where Sikhism has taken root alongside the farms that produce strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and vegetables worth more than $100 million a year.

The uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, the undisputed head of Jassi’s clan, had decided that it would be best if the family stayed together to cut its living expenses, maximize savings and show a unity of values.

This compound was also to be a bastion for the transplanted way of life from Punjab and a showcase for the family’s religious practices.

The family pooled its resources to buy about nine acres of land on 210th Street in Maple Ridge to operate a blueberry farm and in the process become millionaires.

Growing up, Jassi’s life was simple and revolved around school, prayers and household chores.

Sometimes she was too friendly with the farm help and her outgoing ways were curbed with a slap and a curse.

This was part of Jassi’s education process, where honour and shame, humiliation and punishment were central to a woman’s life.

For Jassi, school and education were nothing more than a place her family sent her to learn to read and write. There was no impetus for a higher education.

Jassi, after all, did not need a university degree to look after her chosen husband and bear kids. Her mother had done this and her mother’s mother had done this.

Since everyone in the compound had to work and contribute to the family kitty, Jassi took a job as a beautician at the Peaches and Cream beauty parlour in Maple Ridge, shortly after she graduated from high school.

This, for Jassi, was not a job. It was an escape.

Her brother drove her to and from work every day.

Her paycheque was deposited into a common account.

Jassi, at 24, had also reached the age where girls like her become a topic of conversation among family members looking to find a suitable match.

The family held parties with a decked-out Jassi as the centrepiece while mothers and aunts eyed the crowd.

When the parties wound down, the remarks about potential suitors would range from unimaginable flattery to downright cruelty.

As the wheels of this age-old cultural practice turned, the plan for Jassi became clear.

Her chosen husband would be a man of the same, if not higher, caste and socio-economic standing; a man able to further consolidate the family’s wealth and reputation.

The hunt for a bridegroom would move to Punjab, because it was proving unsuccessful in Canada.

It was a simple plan, but it had a fatal flaw.

Jassi fell in love, and for that she was killed.

The arrest of Jassi’s mother and uncle is a step in the right direction, Jassi’s husband, Mithu, told me Saturday from his home in India.

However, both he and I have reservations as to whether Jassi will ever get justice, given the complications involved in extradition cases and crimes that cross international boundaries.

For now, Mithu lives with gratitude in his heart for the thousands who have shown him support via justiceforjassi.com, and an unbearable sadness for the woman he loved.

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A TIMELINE OF TRAGEDY

. 1995 - After graduating from high school, Jassi meets Mithu Singh Sidhu on a trip to Punjab with relatives and falls in love.

. 1995-1999 - They maintain a clandestine longdistance relationship while Jassi’s family makes arrangements for her to marry a wealthy 60-year-old man.

. February 1999 - Jassi returns to India with family to finalize a marriage but turns down all suitors.

. March 15, 1999 - The young lovers secretly marry and Jassi returns to Canada, promising to arrange for Mithu to immigrate.

. April-June 1999 - Jassi works at a Port Coquitlam beauty salon, where she keeps Mithu’s love letters in a drawer. She sends him money to buy a motorcycle. Her family learns of their marriage after noticing cash withdrawals from the family account.

. June 1999-February 2000 - Jassi’s family insists she divorce Mithu. She is beaten and locked in her room and made to sign a blank paper with the promise of a car. The signature is used to draw up a fake affidavit in which Mithu is accused of kidnapping and marrying Jassi at gunpoint. Mithu and friends are arrested by Indian police and beaten. Mithu pleads with Jassi for help.

. March 2000 - Jassi sends a fax to Indian police refuting the affidavit.

. April and June 2000 - Jassi and Mithu are constantly harassed and threatened. They move from place to place, living with Mithu’s relatives.

. April 2000 - Jassi tells RCMP she is being beaten and held against her will. She flies to India to free Mithu from jail.

. June 7, 2000 - Jassi’s mother tells Jassi by phone that all is forgiven and asks her to come home.

. June 8, 2000 - The couple is ambushed and attacked by a gang armed with swords and sharpened field-hockey sticks. Mithu, left for dead, is found and hospitalized with severe head injuries and in a coma. Jassi is taken to an abandoned farm.

. June 9, 2000 - Jassi’s body is found, her throat slit, in an irrigation canal.

. June 18, 2000 - Fabian Dawson, Province deputy editor, breaks the story. Jassi’s family denies any involvement in interviews. Dawson reports Indian police claims the “order to kill” came from Maple Ridge.

. July 2000 - Court orders police protection for Mithu after gunmen attack his house after he’s released from hospital.

. August 2004 - Mithu is jailed after a 19yearold teen claims he raped her.

. July 2000-August 2004 - The case winds its way through Indian courts. Extradition requests from Indian police are rejected. RCMP only says investigation continues.

. October 2005 - Seven men jailed for life after being convicted for killing Jassi. Indian police renew efforts to extradite Jassi’s mother and uncle.

. December 2005 - Harbinder Sewak hires lawyers and local reporters to prove Mithu was framed for rape.

. June 2007 - Two RCMP officers visit Mithu in jail to record his statements, seven years after Jassi’s murder.

. March 2008 - After questions from the Asian Pacific Post and South Asian Post, “rape victim” admits she was coerced into naming Mithu.

. April 26, 2008 - Mithu freed, 44 months after he was falsely accused of rape.

. Jan. 6, 2012 - Malkit and Badesha are arrested and held in custody pending an extradition hearing.

. Jan. 5, 2012 - B.C. Supreme Court issues arrest warrants under Extradition Act against Jassi’s mother, Malkit Kaur Sidhu, and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha.

Fabian Dawson is  also deputy editor of The Province.

T says:

October 15, 2012 at 12:33 pm

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