Honour crimes in Canada since 2005
Tally of confirmed victims now totals 11
With the conviction of the Mohammad Shafia, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed in the slaying of four family members, the tally of confirmed victims of honour crimes in Canada since 2005 is now 11. Among this total, seven of the victims are young women.
In 2006 in Ottawa, Khatera Sadiqi, 20, and her fiancé, Feroz Mangal, were shot to death by Sadiqi’s brother, who believed she had shamed the Pakistani family by getting engaged without her father’s consent. Hasibullah Sadiqi, 23, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder.
In June 2007 in Toronto’s Scarborough area, Anitha Selvanayagam, 16, and her boyfriend were walking together when they were run over and seriously injured by a van driven by her father.
Prosecutors called it an “attempted honour killing” by Sri Lankan immigrant Selvanayagam Selladurai who was angry that his daughter had dated a boy of a lower caste. He pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault. Selladurai also ran down his son-in-law in the attack.
In December 2007 in Mississauga, Ont., Aqsa Parvez was strangled to death by her father, Muhammad Parvez, and brother Waqas Parvez, 26, in the family home. The men pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 18 years. Aqsa rebelled against strict cultural and religious rules imposed by her Pakistan-born Muslim father.
In January 2009, Amandeep Kaur Dhillon, 22, was stabbed to death by her father-in-law, 47-yearold Kamikar Singh Dhillon, who believed she would disgrace his family by divorcing his son. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Over the past two years, there have been at least four additional suspected honour crimes, including a June 2010 incident in Montreal in which a 38-year-old woman was charged with attempted murder after her 19-year-old daughter was stabbed.