The Voice Newspaper, Rattan Mall 

In India, it’s only in Bollywood movies that a girl from a well-heeled family could defy her parents and the class- and caste-minded society of India and get married to a lowly rickshaw driver.

Yet, that is what Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu (Jassi) of Maple Ridge did when she went to Punjab – and got murdered for it.

As her husband, Sukhwinder Singh (Mithu), who was almost murdered himself, fought for justice for his dead wife, he was framed in a rape case and jailed. He was recently acquitted.

And just this week, the very village - Kaunke Khosa near Jagraon - that shunned him for four years, elected him a “panch” (councillor). Quite obviously, most of his fellow villagers believe him. According to a Punjab newspaper, “Mithu was declared winner by one vote only after 10 other votes in his favour were cancelled late (in the) evening.”

He told the reporter: “I have been in the village for less than a month. Residents forced me to contest as they felt I have been a sufferer. Apart from other sections, Dalits specially voted for me, which proves their sympathy for me.”



Last June, The VOICE reported that the RCMP had sent some officers to Punjab to deal with the request of Indian police to extradite two Canadian suspects in connection with the murder of Jassi. Indian police have charged Jassi's mom Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Singh Badesha, both of Maple Ridge, with conspiracy to commit murder. Both have said that they had nothing to do with the murder.

Back in October, 2005, The Tribune newspaper of Punjab reported that an India judge in Sangrur had sentenced seven goons allegedly hired by the victim’s mom and uncle to life in jail. They included a head constable. Four others were acquitted.

The Indian police had already started extradition proceedings against Jassi’s mom and uncle.

Jassi and Mithu were attacked by criminals near a village while the couple were traveling on a scooter. Mithu was badly injured while his wife was abducted. Her body was later found in a canal. Her throat had been slit.

Jassi, who worked as a beautician in Maple Ridge, fell in love with Mithu, who hailed from her native village, while on a visit to Punjab. She married him in spite of fierce opposition from her mother. Mithu was poor and came from a so-called lower caste. It apparently became a case of preserving the ‘family honour.’

Indian police allege that the contract killers got the order to kill Jassi from Canada shortly after the girl had spoken to her mother on a cellphone following her abduction.

Her husband recovered, but in 2004 he was jailed for alleged rape, though his family insisted that he was framed by corrupt police who evidently had been bribed by Jassi’s influential relatives in Punjab.