The Leader 

The fiancé of a woman who died after she fell from a moving SUV last week had earlier pleaded guilty to participating in a “truck jacking” in Surrey.

Twenty-year-old Jujhar Khunkhun was driving the SUV the evening of Monday, Oct. 8 when the passenger side door opened and 18-year-old Sukhvir Grewal fell to her death while the vehicle was travelling down 64 Avenue near 124 Street around midnight.

The fatality is being investigated by the Surrey RCMP Major Crimes and Traffic sections.

At the time, Khunkhun was under a court order that forbid him from leaving his home at night.

He was awaiting sentencing on a charge of kidnapping in connection with a May 17th, 2006 robbery of a lumber truck in Surrey’s Port Kells neighbourhood.

Court records show Khunkhun and an associate, Harpreet Singh Chahal, pleaded guilty to one charge of kidnapping with intent to confine during an appearance in Surrey Provincial Court on July 12.

Under the Canadian Criminal Code, the offence carries a minimum sentence of four years when firearms are involved.

The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.

The sentencing hearing is set for later this month.

According to police and eyewitness accounts, a Peterbilt truck with a double trailer was getting ready to leave the yard at Garcha Lumber Carrier Ltd. at 9725 192 St. about 7 a.m. on May 17, 2007 with a full load of 2x6 economy-grade lumber when a small black sedan pulled in front of it.

Witnesses reported an argument that ended with shots fired in the air and the owner-operator of the semi and another man being abducted.

The pair called police after they were dropped off in Maple Ridge later that morning. Two suspects were arrested shortly after the call came in.

The victims were said to be shaken up, but physically unharmed.

An investigation by Surrey and Mission RCMP and Abbotsford Police uncovered an apparently related lumber truck theft from a different location in Port Kells on the same day, also involving the brief abduction of a driver.

In an unrelated matter, court records also show Khunkhun was charged with a weapons offence in 2005 in a non-domestic dispute. That charge was stayed after Khunkhun agreed to a $500 peace bond under a section of the Criminal Code that allows a surety in cases where the court decides someone has reasonable grounds to fear “another person will cause personal injury to him or her or to his or her spouse or child or will damage his or her property.”

The day after Sukhvir Grewal died, Khunkhun tried to harm himself by jumping in front of a vehicle.

Grewal’s uncle Satnam Gill told The Leader that Khunkhun’s father called the Grewal family to tell them the would-be groom had been in an accident.

On the night Grewal died, Surrey RCMP confirmed the young couple were stopped by police earlier in the evening, but were allowed to continue on their way.

The detachment did not release further details.