Extradition plan hits a legal hurdle

TORONTO/SANGRUR: The extradition of the mother and uncle of Jaswinder Sidhu Jassi, a 25-year-old woman, who was murdered in 2000 in an alleged case of “honour killing”, was stayed after their lawyer moved a court in Canada’s British Columbia challenging their surrender by Canadian authorities to a team of Punjab Police to stand trial in India.

Michael Klein, who filed the application before the court, told Hindustan Times that they had sought a “judicial review” of the decision to extradite Jassi mother Malkiat Kaur Sidhu and uncle Surjit Singh Badesha. Klein has also sought a review of the Canadian justice minister’s support for the extradition.

“The surrender cannot go forward,” Klein said, referring to the handing over of the pair to the Indian authorities.

A three-member police team was expected to take custody of Malkiat and Surjit on Wednesday and return to India with the two in the evening.

Sangrur SSP Mandeep Singh Sidhu said the team, comprising SP (headquarters) Kanwardeep Kaur, Dhuri DSP AS Aulakh and inspector Deepinder Pal Singh, had reached Toronto from Vancouver after arresting the accused. “A Canadian police team accompanying our men received the stay orders. Now, our team will have to wait for the Supreme Court’s Thursday hearing,” SSP Sidhu told HT.

“We had even sent another six-member team to New Delhi to bring the accused to Sangrur,” he added. The lawyer of the accused said the application filed on Wednesday was based on

CANADA COURT STAYS EXTRADITION OF GIRL’S MOTHER, UNCLE; A PUNJAB POLICE TEAM WAS EXPECTED TO TAKE THEIR CUSTODY AND RETURN ON THURSDAY

“new information that has come to light” though he refused to divulge details about the nature of the information.

While the Canadian top court ruled recently in favour of the extradition going ahead, Klein said that in approaching the BC court of appeal, they were “in new territory.”

Jaswinder, a BC resident, married a man her family did not approve of and that summer, she was murdered in Punjab in what was an alleged contract killing at the behest of her family, including the two accused that the Indian authorities seek to take back to stand trial in India.

Jaswinder reportedly flew from Canada to India to reunite with her husband, Mithu Sidhu, after revealing her marriage to her family.