Canadian SC stays extraditions in Jassi case, Punjab Police awaits details

Chandigarh, Sep 21
A day after the Supreme Court of Canada stayed the extradition of two prime accused in the Jassi Sidhu murder case, Punjab Police was on Thursday awaiting details from Canadian and Indian High Commission authorities, informed sources said.

Canada's highest court on Wednesday gave the last-minute stay on the extradition of Canada-born Jassi's mother Malkiat Kaur and maternal uncle Surjit Singh Badesha, following which Canadian authorities asked a Punjab Police team to de-board the flight that was ready to take off for New Delhi from Toronto.

Police officials here said that the stay was being attributed to "unverified" Facebook posts that the accused would not get a fair trial as promised by state police and Indian authorities and face conviction.

Officials said police was still awaiting official details in the matter from Canada.

A three-member team led by Superintendent of Police Kanwardeep Kaur had gone to Canada to bring Malkiat Kaur and Badesha to Punjab to face trial for the murder of Jassi aka Jaswinder Sidhu in June 2000 at the alleged behest of her relatives who were upset over her marriage to a young man from a "lower" caste.

Last Friday, the Canadian Supreme Court had paved the way for the extradition of the two prime accused through an unanimous judgment by a nine-judge bench.

The top court overruled a lower court that had stopped the deportation of the two from Maple Ridge near Vancouver.

Badesha and his sister Malkiat were accused of hiring contract killers to eliminate her daughter Jassi, a Jat Sikh girl, who met rickshaw puller Sukhwinder Singh alias Mithu in Jagraon town during her visit to Punjab in 1996 and fell in love.

The two secretly married in 1999 when she travelled to India. Jassi was murdered near Mithu's village, after the couple riding a scooter were waylaid by hired contract killers.

Punjab Police investigations confirmed it was an "honour killing" allegedly plotted by Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Badesha while sitting in Canada.

Based on evidence of 266 phone conversations that Badesha had with the killers, India formally requested Canada in 2005 to extradite both to face trial in Punjab.

In May 2014, an extradition judge in British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver ordered that Jassi's maternal uncle and mother be deported. But British Columbia's Appeal Court overturned the deportation order on the ground of India's "appalling" record on treatment of prisoners.