Jassi honour killing case: Probe officer says task ‘half-accomplished’ until mother, uncle get punished

Swaran Singh (58), then an inspector at Dhuri police station at Sangrur and now SP in Bathinda, was handed over the case 12 days after Jassi’s body was found from a drain near Bulara village in Ludhiana in June 2000. The couple was allegedly attacked near Narike village in Sangrur. The attackers left an injured Mithu and took Jassi to a farmhouse in Ludhiana where she was killed. However, Mithu survived the attack.

Special investigating officer (IO) in the case for 19 years now, Swaran Singh, said, “The job is half-accomplished. I am not leaving it till the mother and maternal uncle get punished for the murder. For 19 years, I got threats to backtrack from the case. I used to get several threat calls from Canada saying my family would be killed if I do not leave this probe. They even offered me money and land but I also have a daughter. I was told that I can demand moo maanga paisa (any amount I desire). My family stood with me. What happened to Jassi should not happen with any girl. ”

On the brutality with which 25-year-old Jassi was killed, the officer said, “Her throat was slit with a sword and broken glass bottles… there were deep injuries everywhere. When the killers called her mother after attacking the couple, Jassi spoke to her and said she would expose her. Her mother then told the accused to finish Jassi also.”

Saying that he felt ashamed when the name of an inspector of Punjab Police cropped up as the main conspirator, Singh said, “Ludhiana CIA inspector Joginder Singh (currently serving life imprisonment) was the mastermind of executing the conspiracy. He arranged contract killers for Jassi’s family and gave his ‘illegally grabbed’ farmhouse at Ludhiana to the killers where Jassi was killed. He even told the accused to dump Jassi’s body in ‘his area’ so that he could bury the matter. I had arrested him.”

Calling it the “most difficult and challenging case” of his career as the main accused were in Canada, Singh said he still remembers even the “minute details” of the case without seeing the file. Government felicitated Swaran Singh with a cash award of Rs 21,000 in 2006. He said the three vital clues that led him to the conspirators were a Canadian telephone number, refusal of the family to accept her body and an affidavit that Jassi filed with Ludhiana rural police declaring that her mother and uncle might kill her because she married against their will.

“Mithu gave us a Canadian phone number, the call records of which pointed to the accused. It was Jassi’s uncle’s number from which the couple used to get threats from Canada,” he said.

“Our suspicion grew after Jassi’s family refused to accept her body. Mithu’s family cremated her. The defence counsels even told the court that the woman killed was not Jassi,” said Singh.

The case details 

Jaswinder Kaur alias Jassi, a beautician from a rich family in Canada, fell in love with Sukhwinder Singh Mithu, a kabaddi player from Kaunke Kosan of Jagraon in Ludhiana, in 1994. They married secretly in 1999, against the wishes of Jassi’s family.

Jassi went back to Canada and returned the next year. On June 8, 2000, four days before Mithu’s family was to host a reception for the couple, the couple was attacked near Narike village in Sangrur.

Seven persons, including Punjab Police inspector Joginder Singh, were convicted in 2005 by a local court. Three of them were later acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. All four convicted then moved the apex court. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of three accused — Ashwani Kumar alias Ashu, Anil Kumar and Joginder Singh.

The extradition of Jassi’s mother and uncle, who were arrested by Canada police in 2012, was pending since They will now face trial in Sangrur.