SURREY - Amanpreet Kaur Bahia lay in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor Wednesday with her year-old daughter Jessie sitting on her body.

Bahia's father-in-law, Didar Singh, came upon the horrific scene about 11:30 a.m. and found the 33-year-old mother dead and her two daughters -- Jessie and three-year-old Birinder -- alone. Her third daughter, nine-year-old Harkaran, was in class at Surrey's Khalsa school.

Bahia's distraught relatives described the terrible scene to The Vancouver Sun Thursday as they tried to come to terms with the death of the hard-working, cheerful woman.

RCMP said they have no suspects in the murder -- the third in recent months of a young Indo-Canadian woman in Surrey. Cpl. Dale Carr, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said investigators were not releasing the cause of death, except to describe Bahia's killing as "a brutal violent attack."

Carr said Thursday it is too early to say if her death was a random or targeted attack but there was no sign of a break-in at the home and neighbours have not been warned by police to be on the look-out for a killer. Bahia had lived in the house at 5867 - 125 St. for a decade since marrying Baljinder in India and immigrating to Canada. She shared the home with her father-in-law, mother-in-law Karam Kaur, and her three daughters.

About 18 months after the marriage, her husband Baljinder transferred his one-third interest in the Newton house and the Cloverdale farm to his parents, according to land title records obtained by The Sun.

Relatives say the couple had marital trouble at the time.

Both properties were transferred on Nov. 18, 1998, the documents show, despite the fact Bahia and her husband continued to live at the family home.

Bahia worked such long hours that she did not have much of a social life, according to Bhupinder Singh Sandhu, a cousin who was raised in the same Punjabi house as Bahia.

"We are so surprised. She was so nice," Sandhu said in an interview. Bahia would start her work day as early as 5 a.m., picking up labourers for the farm at 16686 48th Ave., where they grow blueberries and cranberries.

She would often not get home from work until late in the evening, Sandhu said. He said Bahia's in-laws described to him the state of the house when she was found.

"One daughter was upstairs and one was downstairs when it happened," Sandhu said. "Her husband was at the farm and the mother and sister-in-law were at the doctor. Nobody was at the house. When the father-in-law came back he found her on the basement kitchen floor. She was already dead."

Parminder Singh Chohan, whose wife is Bahia's aunt, said little Jessie was sitting on her dead mom.

"She was just sitting on the body," he said. "The kids don't understand what is happening."

Sandhu said his cousin had a few problems with her in-laws, but nothing out of the ordinary. "There was nothing big. Just arguments," he said.

He had to call her parents in Punjab Thursday with the news of her murder.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007