SIGN THE PETITION
Her body with the throat slit was found in a ditch, 45 kilometres from the village of Kaonke Khosa in Punjab.
The popular 25-year-old Canadian, called “Jassi” by her friends was punished because she went against her family’s wishes and married the man she loved - Sukhwinder "Mithu" Singh, a poor auto-rickshaw driver.
Police say her desperate pleas to her family in Canada over the phone while she was being beaten by contract killers at an abandoned farmhouse were ignored.
Shortly after Jassi's body was found Indian police alleged that family members, including her mother and uncle in B.C., paid thugs up to $50,000 for the murder.
The order to kill, police say "came from Canada". They have charged Jassi's mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha both of Maple Ridge, with conspiracy to commit murder.
The wealthy and connected Maple Ridge farming family has denied any involvement in the incident but has acknowledged they opposed the marriage on cultural grounds.
So far only the secondary players in the crime – seven of them including an Indian police officer and another of Jassi’s uncle – have been convicted after a trial that spanned five years.
They have told the court they were hired for the deadly retaliation. Another four accused were acquitted.
But the alleged masterminds, Jassi’s mother and uncle in Maple Ridge remain free despite being charged with murder by Indian authorities in 2000.
Frustrated Indian police have revised their extradition requests to Canada at least four times.
The RCMP, Canadian Foreign Affairs and The Department of Justice will only say is that the file remains active. There are now justified fears that the alleged architects of the crime could get away with murder
In the meantime, Jassi’s husband Mithu who was left for dead by the assailants the day his wife was kidnapped is languishing in an Indian jail on charges that he raped another woman.
There is strong evidence that he was framed by parties involved in Jassi’s murder to extract revenge.
The Asian Pacific Post has been in the forefront of reporting the Jassi murder case. Hundreds of readers who have been following the story via our newspaper and online editions have written expressing their outrage at the lack of justice for Jassi and Mithu.
