M A I N   N E W S

Jassi’s widower acquitted of all charges
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service

Eight years ago, Sukhwinder, an auto-driver, watched his NRI wife being murdered by contract killers. He survived the attack but was grievously wounded. He fought a protracted legal battle to bring the killers to book. He was falsely booked for raping another girl, because of which he spent over three years in jail.

Ludhiana, April 26
This is surely one of the worst ordeals faced by a man for love. Sukhwinder Singh, alias Mithu, the central character in the internationally infamous NRI Jassi honour killing case, finally walked free today after spending over three years in a jail for a false rape case, slapped on him allegedly at the behest of relatives of the NRI girl.

It is on record now that after failing to eliminate him in a murderous assault that took the life of his lady love, Jaswinder Kaur, alias Jassi, in May 2000, Mithu was booked in a conspiracy hatched by relatives of the NRI girl for raping a girl of his native village, Kaunke Kalan, and sent to the Central Jail in August 2004. He seemed gone for good behind bars.

But now in a complete turn of events, the youth, after spending over three-and-a-half years of his life among hardened criminals in the jail, can hold his head high.

He was released from the jail this evening, with Additional Sessions Judge A.S. Grewal acquitting him of all charges early in the day.

None other than the rape victim girl had deposed before the judge last week, saying she had named Mithu as the rapist at the behest of two Kaunke Kalan village-based uncles of the NRI girl.

Along with the rape complainant, her sister, who was the prime witness to the alleged rape, had also turned hostile.

“I named Mithu under the pressure of the influential uncles of Jassi. I don’t know on what statement the police got my signatures. Later, when we learnt that innocent Mithu had been booked and arrested, they threatened that we would meet the same fate as Jassi,” she told the judge.

The NRI girl Jassi was on a visit to the house of these uncles in 1999 when she met and fell in love with Mithu, who lived in the neighbourhood.

The uncles were the first to oppose their match, saying Mithu was inferior socially and economically, and that the match would bring them a loss of face in society.

Their large house in the village overshadows Mithu’s two-room house situated in the neighbourhood. Bikram Jit Singh Sidhu, the lawyer defending Mithu, said today was a red letter day for justice. “But who would return over three years of his life wasted in the jail when he was already emotionally distressed at the murder of his NRI wife.”

The love affair culminating in their marriage against all opposition and the murder of Jassi by contract killers hired by her Canada-based parents and eventually charging of Mithu with rape had become the subject of a number of movies, TV serials, apart from documentaries by National Geographic and Discovery Channel.

Canadian residents were so anguished at the murder of Jassi and the arrest of Mithu in a rape case that thousands of them supported a media campaign and a website “Justice for Jassi - No one should be Killed for Love”, floated by Asian Pacific Post.

Canadian and Indian media was sceptical of the rape case imposed on Mithu from day one. But the Jagraon police had stuck to its stand, saying Mithu was not falsely implicated.

An emotional Mithu told The Tribune, “I had been fighting to live with my love (Jassi) first, then I fought death to survive the attack. No one has paid as heavily for love as I have. I have fought the police, the false cases, but finally the law of the land has come to my aid. My struggle would, however, only end when parents of Jassi are extradited to India and pay for the crime.”

“What crime had I committed for loving Jassi. I married her and took her to my small house. I never married her for her social status or money. Her relatives punished us, ‘as it was the biggest crime in the world’. I want to ask those helping them, including the contract killers, the cops and many others as to why they helped her relatives in their crime against love, he said.

Mithu said parents and relatives of Jassi managed to throw him in jail after they failed to eliminate him or buy him. “As I was pressing hard for punishment to the killers and extradition of parents of Jassi, they tried their best to buy me. I was offered over a crore of rupees to stop pursuing the matter. But nothing could buy my love for Jassi.” It is now the prerogative of Mithu to file a petition before the court seeking action against those, including relatives of Jassi and police officials , who falsely implicated him.