Jaswinder Sidhu's Murder Case: Mother, uncle of alleged honour killing odered to be extradited to India over her slaying

Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu @ Jassi

Vancouver - The mother and uncle of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu have been ordered extradited to India to face charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, 14 years after she was found dead.
Sidhu, also known as Jassi, 25, was found strangled and beaten to death in Punjab in 2000. Her mother, Malkit Sidhu, and uncle, Surjit Badesha, both of Maple Ridge, B.C., were arrested in 2012.
In court Friday, Justice Gregory Fitch ordered the siblings be extradited to India, to face accusations they killed Sidhu after she married Mithu Sidhu, a rickshaw driver she met in India a few years earlier, of whom her family did not approve.
The final decision on the extraditions will be made by Canada's justice minister, and that decision could be appealed.
Jaswinder Sidhu, 25, of Maple Ridge, B.C. worked at a Coquitlam beauty salon​. Last year, co-worker Jody Wright testified at the extradition hearing for Malkit Sidhu and Badesha that Sidhu had told her the marriage had remained a secret for about a year because she had married for love, while her family wanted her to have an arranged marriage.
Justice Gregory Fitch heard that when the clandestine union accidentally came to light, what happened next was an "interrogation," during which Sidhu's own life and that of her husband were threatened.
Wright testified her friend told her she admitted to her family that she was married and was forced to sign a document seeking an annulment.

Jaswinder Sidhu married Mithu Sidhu for love, against the wishes of her family

 

"She was fearful of her life. She told me she didn't know what they were capable of," Wright said.
Even prior to Sidhu's admission of her marriage, Wright testified that her relatives would often come to the salon to keep an eye on her. After the admission, Wright told the court, their presence increased.
Sidhu arranged a code with Wright that would initiate a call to police. Wright said she made that call twice.
"The code word was, 'I'm sick or I have the flu.' That was my trigger to call the cops because she was locked in her bedroom," she told the court.
Finally, weeks before her death, Wright testified that Sidhu ran away from home, fleeing to the home of another co-worker, Tamara Lamirande, with the help of a Maple Ridge police officer.
Sidhu had heard from her husband who was still in India and the news was not good, Lamirande testified.
"She had been receiving phone calls from India from Mithu and his friends that he was being threatened, that his family was being threatened, his mother, and he was scared and that he was beaten up," she told Fitch.
"Jassi knew that the uncle had arranged people to go after Mithu and his family to scare him off, so that this marriage would break up."

Jaswinder Sidhu's mother, Malkit Kaur Sidhu, and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, in court during their extradition hearing.

 

After about a week at Lamirande's home, Sidhu flew to India to reunite with her husband, and bring him back to start a new life in Canada. She never returned.
Sidhu and her husband were attacked as they rode a scooter in a village near Sangrur, Punjab, in June 2000. According to reports in India, her husband was severely beaten and left for dead.
Sidhu was kidnapped and later strangled to death, her body left in a canal.
The case received extensive media coverage, which included a book and more than one television documentary.
Seven people have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in her death, but several of those convictions were overturned on appeal.
The family has denied any involvement.