Jassi honour killing: Mother, uncle held in Canada after 11 years

Kaunke Kalan (Jagraon), January 7

Eleven-and-a-half years after Jassi Sidhu, a Canadian girl of Indian origin, was killed and her husband Sukhwinder Mithu left for dead near Narike village in Malerkotla by a group of contract killers allegedly hired by Jassi’s Canada-based mother and maternal uncle, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) finally arrested the duo from their house this morning in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

Jassi’s mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Singh were allegedly evading arrest and extradition to India all these years. The RCMP has, in a press release, announced that Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh were being questioned and would soon be extradited to India.

Of about 10 alleged contract killers, only three, including former sub-inspector Joginder Singh, Anil Kumar and Ashwani Kumar, are behind bars at present.

“Justice has finally been done to some extent. I am waiting for the day when Jassi’s mother and uncle will be brought to India and punished. I don’t know whether I would meet them or not. But I may not like to see such faces. I have always wished for exemplary punishment for Jassi’s mother, who ordered her killing,” said Mithu’s mother.

“It was due to immense media pressure that the case remained alive and forced the Canadian police to act. Justice was delayed, but not denied,” said Mithu, who did not remarry.

The murder was a rude end to a love story that transcended continents but could not overcome the barriers of caste and society. It was the first international instance of the menace of honour killing prevalent in North India.

DSP Swaran Singh, the investigating officer in the case, said he was elated at the arrest of Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh. “It was my duty as well as my life’s purpose to see justice done to Mithu and Jassi. We are eagerly awaiting the extradition of the duo.” 

Murder Most Foul

Dec 1994: Jassi meets Mithu in Jagraon.

Mar 15, 1999: They marry in secret at Baba Bakala gurdwara in Amritsar district.

May 1999: Jassi returns to Canada. Prepares documents for Mithu’s migration to Canada, but is exposed in early 2000. Kept in house custody illegally by her parents.

February 2000: Mithu booked for kidnapping and forcible marriage of Jassi.

May 19, 2000: Mithu acquitted after Jassi reaches India and gives a statement in his favour.

June 8, 2000: Contract killers attack them late evening near Narike village in Malerkotla. Jassi dies, Mithu injured.

June-July 2000: Most of the accused arrested. Police books Jassi’s mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Singh for conspiracy to murder. Extradition proceedings begin.

Mid-2004: Mithu booked for rape of a village girl, arrested, sent to jail.

April 2008: Ludhiana court acquits Mithu of rape charge.

January 2012: RCMP arrests Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh Badesha.

Harper names 7 new senators

OTTAWA — A senator-in-waiting from Alberta, a police chief from Ottawa, a former MP and a defeated Tory candidate were among seven new senators named to the Upper Chamber on Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Among those announced in a statement by Harper were: Betty Unger, who had won a Senate election in Alberta; Ottawa police Chief Vernon White; and former Newfoundland Tory MP Norman Doyle.

Also named was Jean-Guy Dagenais, a defeated Tory candidate in last year's federal election and a former peace officer with Quebec's provincial police force.

Rounding out the list were JoAnne Buth, president of the Canola Council of Canada, Ghislain Maltais, a former member of the Quebec legislature; and Dr. Asha Seth, a Toronto physician.

Since coming to power in early 2006, Harper has now named 46 Conservative senators, including renaming several failed Tory federal election candidates.

He reappointed Fabian Manning and Larry Smith to the red chamber in May after they resigned and failed to win a seat in the House of Commons in last May's federal election. Former Conservative cabinet minister Josee Verner was also appointed after voters punted her from the Commons.

Filling the seven vacancies will boost the Conservatives' majority in the upper chamber to a solid 61 of 105 seats.

The postings come with a base salary of $132,300.

The seven vacancies arose from five retirements and two resignations: the retirement of Alberta Liberal senator Tommy Banks; resignations of Liberal senators Sharon Carstairs from Manitoba and Francis Fox in Quebec; retirements of Conservative senator Vim Kochhar and Progressive Conservative Lowell Murray in Ontario; and retirements of Liberal senators Lucie Pepin and Bill Rompkey in Quebec and Newfoundland, respectively.

The Harper government has for years vowed to reform the upper chamber, but change has been slow.

The government's Senate Reform Act, which is still before the House of Commons, would limit new senators' terms to nine years and establish guidelines for provinces to voluntarily hold Senate nominee elections.

However, the act wouldn't be binding on the prime minister or Governor General when making appointments to the Senate.

The Tory reforms set out a process by which a prime minister might appoint senators who are selected through provincial or municipal elections. It's up to the provinces, however, to run the elections and to pay for them — something many provinces have said they won't do.

Alberta is the only province to ever hold Senate elections.

Quebec has threatened to fight the senate-reform legislation in court, while other premiers, such as Ontario's Dalton McGuinty and British Columbia's Christy Clark, have called for the Senate to be abolished (although Clark has also said she favours elections if abolition isn't an option).

Alberta Premier Alison Redford has promised to hold a new Senate election in conjunction with the provincial campaign expected in 2012, while New Brunswick's David Alward recently announced his government will introduce legislation to elect Senate nominees.

‘Immigrate through legitimate means’

Chandigarh, January 5
Dwelling on the agenda of youth empowerment through quality education, skills development and employment, most of overseas participants expressed serious concerns over deterioration in the standard of senior secondary education and post-matriculation dropout rate in Punjab at the Punjabi Parvasi Divas conference here today.

Canada as a partner country in this years' conference was well represented, both among speakers and the audience.

Though Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, NRI Affairs Minister Balbir Singh Bath, Chief Secretary SC Aggarwal and NRI Commissioner Vijay Partap were conspicuous by their absence, overseas Punjabis from Canada, including Ontario Minister Harinder Takhar, Alberta MLA Peter Sandhu and former MP Gurbax Malhi, talked about how Punjabis have scripted a success story in their present country of abode.

The participants endorsed the suggestion made by the secretary-general of the International Punjabi Chamber for Service Industry Gulshan Sharma that immigration overseas should be only through legitimate, decent and dignified means.

Satinder Dhiman, a management professor in North America, through video conferencing, expressed deep concern that the dropout rate of students for post-matriculatiuon education in Punjab had shot up to more than 90 per cent. Without education, he said, no state could come up economically.

Canada's Consul-General in Chandigarh Scot Slessor said what Canada needed most was young skilled people who were comfortable in speaking English.

More than 50 per cent of the total Indian immigrants in Canada come from Punjab and its surrounding areas. Scot Slessor said list of skills in demand in Canada were all prominently displayed on the government websites. Advanced countries did not need many people with higher educational qualifications, including PhDs, but they needed plumbers, drivers, mechanics or people trained in other trades in demand. Other basic requirement was that they should be conversant with English.

Ontario Minister for Government Services said Punjabis made up for their deficiencies in education with "jugads". With their hard work and unprecedented ability to adapt themselves to the new work and living environs, they had made major strides in every area.

Peter Sandhu from Alberta said when he left India more than three decades ago, the standard of high school education was pretty good. But unfortunately, it had deteriorated rapidly. The government needed to focus on reviving education network, besides imparting training in trades that were in demand overseas.

Inmates can contest poll but remain barred from voting

Kapurthala, January 5

Thousands of inmates languishing in various jails of the state would not be able to cast their franchise on January 30 even though those convicted under particular sections can contest the forthcoming assembly poll.

Such are the provisions of Section 62 (5) Representatives of the Public Act (RPA), 1951, that mention that no imprisoned person can vote. However, Section 8 of the RPA Act states that convicted persons with sentence less than two years can contest.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Raj Kamal Chaudhary said the Punjab election office received instructions from the Election Commission of India a few days ago that no inmate be allowed to vote. However, he stated, if a person was convicted for some particular offences that entail less than two years of imprisonment, then he could contest the elections.

The offence includes crime under FERA, Corruption Act, Protection of Civil Rights Act, Sections 153 A of the IPC and various Sections of the IPC related with electoral malpractices, Customs Act, NDPS and TADA.

AIG (Jails) DK Sidhu said there were over 10,000 undertrials lodged in 23 jails of the state who would not be allowed to votes. These undertrials are lodges in eight central jails located at Kapurthala, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Gurdaspur (with capacity from 700 to 2800), six district jails at Ropar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Nabha, Sangrur and Mansa (with capacity below 500), eight sub jails at Dasuya, Pathankot, Phagwara, Patti, Malerkotla, Moga, Fazilka and Muktsar (with capacity from 25 to 250), Borstal jail at Ludhiana (capacity 500 prisoners from 18 to 21 years of age) and women jail at Ludhiana.

Taking strong exception to these provisions of the RPA Act, a human rights activist, advocate Rajinder Bhatia, has urged the Union Government to amend Section 62 (5) of the Act that prohibits the undertrials from voting.

Transfer of Justice Mohinder Pal

Differences crop up between CJ, judge

Chandigarh, January 4
Difference of opinion between the Chief Justice (CJ) and a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has surfaced, yet again. This time it is on the issue of the Chief Justice going public on the transfer of a high court judge; and another judge reacting to the assertions made by the CJ.

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi is believed to have told a newspaper that an order in a Gurgaon property case was one "major reason" behind Justice Mohinder Pal's transfer.

In the order, Haryana Urban Development Authority had been asked to allot 9.527 acres to Orchid Infrastructure Developers Private Limited.

Justice Pal's judgment had set aside the sessions court's order that had stopped this allotment. After his transfer from the high court here, Justice Pal has been sworn in as a Judge of the Gujarat High Court. Information reveals Chief Justice Gogoi's reported comments on the issue have not gone down well with at least one of the judges.

In an unprecedented move, the Judge - Justice K. Kannan - has shot off a communication to judges of the high court here, expressing his disapproval on the matter. The letter is apparently in response to the New Year's greetings.

The letter, apparently critical of the comments made by the CJ before the media, is significant, as the administrative side of the judiciary functions from behind thick drapes; and whispers in the judicial corridors are seldom confirmed in public. The prevailing mood among the judges is that the judiciary's image needs to be protected by not making public the details of internal mechanism to check abrasions.

This is the third time in the recent past that differences with the Chief Justice have emerged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In June 2008, the judges were divided over holding of the interviews for Additional District and Sessions Judges in Punjab.

Prior to this, on April 19, 2004, as many as 25 judges had proceeded on mass leave in protest against the functioning of the then Chief Justice, BK Roy. Only one judge had attended the court with him.

The relations between Chief Justice Roy and the judges caused considerable worry to the Supreme Court and that led to Roy’s transfer to the Gauhati High Court at Guwahati.

Happy New Year 2012

NRI Law Group, Canada wishes Happy New Year 2012 to our all NRI brothers & sisters!

Federation Council to ask Constitutional Court if senators can be directly elected

MOSCOW, December 27 - RAPSI. The Federation Council is contemplating inquiring at the Constitutional Court to clarify if the Constitution allows direct elections of senators.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said during his call-in that he considers it possible for Federation Council members to be directly elected from the candidates nominated by the parties holding parliamentary seats.

"We have already held the first meeting of a working group for developing a proposal to make the Federation Council elective and we want the Constitutional Court to clarify the Constitutional provision which states that the State Duma shall be elected and the Federation Council shall be formed from representatives of each regions legislative and executive authorities", Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko told journalists on Tuesday.

Their elucidation will help clarify how the elections should be held and whether they infringe on the rights of regional legislative and executive authorities, she said.

Matviyenko believes that one possible option is for a candidate for the governors position to run together with a candidate for the Federation Council. So far there are no options ready, but the council "will definitely find a solution", she added.