Dream Reality Movies next after DEV DSP will be a biopic, Based on Jassi Sidhu & Mithu

Dream Reality Movies coming up with another bio-pic after “Dakuaan Da Munda”, will based on Jassi Sidhu & Mithu’s murder conspiracy, in which Jassi Sidhu was murdered his husband was escaped some how. This the is the biggest crime in term of honour killing in punjab.

Read the complete story about this honour killing as published in Indian Express Dated 20 December 2018

Eleven years after Jassi Sidhu,a Canadian citizen,was murdered in Punjab,her mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Singh Badesha were arrested in Canada for the ‘honour killing’.

Eleven years ago,a wedding and a murder rocked Kaonke Khosa,a village 40 km away from Ludhiana in Punjab. It started as a fairytale romance—poor tempo-driver Mithu meets rich girl Jassi—but ended with the murder of Jassi,a tall,lissome Canadian girl of Indian origin. These days,there is an uneasy calm in Kaonke Khosa as the story of Mithu and Jassi does the rounds of the village—earlier this month,the Canadian police arrested Jassi’s uncle Surjit Singh Badesha and mother Malkiat Kaur for the murder.

In a village lane,a house stands shuttered against a huge gate that reads ‘Badesha Home’. Neighbours say no one has come to the house in years. In an adjoining lane,at Mithu’s modest house,his mother sits in the courtyard in the winter sun,uneasy with the renewed media interest in the case. “If news of this case spreads again,who will marry my son?” she says before clamming up. Her son is more forthcoming.

“I saw Jassi for the first time in the winter of 1994. She was 18 and I was 16. I was returning home after a kabaddi match. We met in Jagraon near our village. It was love at first sight. I didn’t know then that she was visiting her uncle in my village,” says Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu or Mithu as he is called. “She was travelling in my tempo and she wrote ‘I L U’ with a lipstick on a slip of paper and gave it to me. We met regularly after that. In January 1995,she returned to Canada but we kept in touch,” says Mithu,now 33.

Over the next few years,they wrote to each other regularly. “She would write to me in English and a teacher friend of mine would translate her letters for me. I would reply in Punjabi and Jassi’s friends would translate it,” says Mithu.

While their friendship deepened,Jassi’s family began forcing her to get married. “She told her family she would get married only in India and on this pretext,she came to our village,four years after we first met. Her maternal uncles were trying to arrange a match for her. We knew our families would never allow us to get married so we eloped and married on March 15,1999. After that,Jassi went back to her home in the village and later to Canada.”

They kept their wedding a secret and on returning to Canada,Jassi sent Mithu documents that would help him migrate to Canada. Mithu says that was when her parents sensed something wrong. By then,news of their wedding had leaked in the village.

“All hell broke loose at Jassi’s house in Canada. She was stopped from going to work. Her mother beat her and locked her inside the home. In February 2000,I was slapped with a case of kidnapping Jassi,” says Mithu.

Jassi sent a fax from Canada to the Jagraon police,claiming the kidnapping complaint made in her name was false. The judge hearing the case wanted Jassi to come to India and testify. With the help of the Canadian police,Jassi left her parents’ home and flew out of Canada. She never returned.

Jassi reached Punjab and testified before the judge. “The case against me was discharged but we were too scared to go to my village. We went to Chandigarh for a while. By this time,my family came around and wanted to host a reception for us,” says Mithu.

On June 8,2000,Jassi and Mithu went out shopping for their reception in village Narike near Malerkotla and decided to go out for dinner. They were returning home around 9 p.m. on a scooter when they were attacked by seven people wielding swords and hockey sticks. Mithu was left for dead while the attackers took away Jassi. “The deal was to kill me and take Jassi back to Canada. But Jassi refused to go and threatened to tell the police. So they killed her and dumped her body in a drain,” says Mithu,tears welling up in his eyes.

The Punjab police got to the bottom of the case and by 2004-5,seven accused,including Joginder Singh,an inspector in the Punjab Police who helped Jassi’s family get in touch with the hitmen,were given life imprisonment. Police say Jassi’s family had given Rs 5 lakh to the contract killers to carry out the attack on Jassi and her husband.

Swaran Singh,a deputy superintendent of police now posted at Sangrur,is credited with cracking the case. He says,“We have some 300 pages of phone call details that were made between Jassi and her parents and her parents and the killers. Only a fortnight before the killing,Jassi had submitted an affidavit to the police claiming her parents could kill her and her husband,” says Singh.

“After leaving Mithu for dead,Jassi was taken to a farmhouse in Bulara village near Ludhiana and Jassi spoke to her mother and maternal uncle. The killers told us that Jassi cried for mercy but her mother was unmoved,” says Singh.

The police spoke to Mithu several times before piecing together the events. “We picked up Darshan Singh,a relative of Jassi’s uncle Surjit Singh Badesha,and after that,we got to the other accused,” says Singh.

Mithu survived the attack but was in coma for almost a month. His travails did not end there. In 2004,he was slapped with a rape case and spent four years in jail only to be acquitted of all charges in 2008. “The girl who accused me of rape withdrew her complaint. Her family told us they had been paid Rs 3.5 lakh by Jassi’s uncles. They are now forcing me to withdraw my complaint against them—they offered me Rs 1 crore and 14 acres to remove Surjit Singh Badesha and Malkiat Kaur’s names from the FIR,” says Mithu.

‘What was the Canadian Police doing for 11 years?’

OVER 10,000 km away from Kaonke Khosa,in Maple Ridge,a picturesque small town near Vancouver in the western Canadian province of British Columbia,there is a sense of relief and hope among residents that justice for Jassi Sidhu may finally be in sight. “There’s also frustration that it has taken such a long time to get some form of closure,” says Ernie Daykin,the town’s mayor.

On January 6,2012,Maple Ridge residents Malkiat Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha,the mother and uncle of Jassi,were arrested and they now face possible extradition to India.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police,RCMP,said in a statement that the Indian authorities’ investigation into the murder had “uncovered evidence indicating Jassi Sidhu’s family were involved in the homicide from Canada”.

Jassi was born in Maple Ridge in 1975,and graduated from Pitt Meadows Secondary School. Jim Longridge,a former principal of the school,recalls Jassi as a “respectful,well-behaved student who never caused any trouble”.

Jassi’s family is fairly wealthy,living in a big house with over 25 rooms,according to a local journalist. Her extended family lives together in the compound. They are millionaires and owners of a blueberry farm,a common business in the region. Jassi’s father is reportedly mentally challenged,even from the time before her murder.

When Fabian Dawson,Deputy Editor of The Province,a daily newspaper in British Columbia,first received news of Jassi’s death,he thought it was a straightforward case of a Canadian citizen’s murder in India. But when he interviewed Jassi’s family,he recalls,her uncle kept repeating that he didn’t have anything to do with the murder. That aroused Dawson’s suspicion,and sparked a decade-long involvement with the case.

Since 2000,Dawson has co-authored a book,Justice for Jassi,worked on three documentaries about her murder and served as a consultant on Murder Unveiled,a television film about the case,which aired on the Canadian channel CBC.

Harbinder Singh Sewak,publisher of South Asian Post,a local community newspaper,has been Dawson’s active partner in the campaign to pressure Canadian authorities to act against Jassi’s mother and uncle,and is the co-author of Justice for Jassi. He and Dawson also started the website http://www.justiceforjassi.com.

Sewak,a Sikh,complains some sections of the community were indifferent to the charges in India against Jassi’s family members. In fact,he says,Jassi’s uncle was treated as a leader in the nearby Richmond Nanaksar gurdwara until his arrest.

Sikh leaders in the neighbourhood are quick to declare that “honour killings” are despicable,but cautious to comment on Jassi’s case. Lakhwinder Singh Brar,vice president of the Khalsa Diwan Society of Abbotsford in Vancouver,stresses he can only speak for himself and not as a spokesman for his gurdwara. Brar says honour killings and domestic violence are “not a reality,not a problem” in the community. Referring to Jassi’s case,he says,“If she was my daughter,I would try to talk her out of the marriage. In the worst case,I would say,‘to hell with you and stay away from me’.”

But Jassi’s family did face some pressure in their town. Fred Armstrong,a former publisher of the local newspaper,Maple Ridge Times,says they mostly kept a low profile and “the family was ostracised a little bit by people in Maple Ridge,and even within the Indian community”. Jassi’s school principal Longridge has also been actively petitioning everyone from his member of parliament to Canada’s justice minister for action against Jassi’s mother and uncle.

Maple Ridge has a population of around 80,000,and just about 800 of them are of Indian origin. A large number of them are Sikh,and the Indian community is a mix of farmers and skilled professionals.

Ujjal Dosanjh,premier of British Columbia at the time Jassi was murdered in India,was the first and until now the only Indo-Canadian to hold such a high political office anywhere in Canada. He says the agency has not been transparent enough in this case. “If two Canadian citizens plotted to murder anybody abroad,then it’s a crime,” says Dosanjh. “The RCMP needs to come clean with Canadians as to what they have done and why no charges were brought in Canada. What were they doing for 11 years?” The RCMP has said it would not comment as the case is now before the courts.

The extradition process,even if ultimately successful,could take up to ten years. “The accused will have the right to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada,” says Dosanjh. The process has barely begun. On Wednesday,the bail hearing for Malkiat Sidhu and Badesha was postponed until January 18.