UP man accused of killing Punjab woman in Canada held for ‘threatening’ her kin

The man escaped from Canada after allegedly committing the murder on October 20, circulated the victim's morphed pictures and forced kin to withdraw the case.

The Sangrur police on Thursday arrested a man who allegedly murdered a Sangrur woman in Canada a few months ago, fled to India and then issued threats to her family in Prem Basti area of the district to force it to get the murder case dropped in Canada against him. Identified as Manpreet Singh, a resident of Lakhimpur Khiri in UP, the accused had reportedly fled to India immediately after murdering the 27-year-old woman (Amanpreet Kaur) in Canada on October 20 last year, officials said.

Accused Manpreet Singh of Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Sartaj Singh Chahal said Inderjit Singh, a resident of Prem Basti in Sangrur, mentioned in his complaint that his two daughters — Amanpreet Kaur and Gursimran Kaur — lived in Canada. Amanpreet resided in a rented apartment in East York, Toronto, and worked as a personal support worker at a hospital. According to her father, Amanpreet had informed him that Manpreet, whose taxi services she used to go to her workplace, had been pressuring her for marriage. She had firmly refused his proposal.

The SSP said that on October 21, Inderjit Singh failed to contact Amanpreet so he asked his elder daughter Gursimran Kaur to check on her. Finding her missing, Gursimran filed a report with the Canadian police. Later, Canadian authorities informed her that Amanpreet’s body had been recovered near Niagara Falls, Ontario. The complainant further stated that the Canadian police identified Manpreet as the suspect and confirmed that he had fled to India.

According to SSP Chahal, Manpreet Singh, after arriving in India, contacted Gursimran via WhatsApp and Instagram, threatening to kill her and the rest of the family in Sangrur. Manpreet was also accused of entering Inderjit’s house in Sangrur carrying a sharp-edged weapon in the last week of October and issuing death threats to the family while asking them to get the murder case dropped in Canada.

Following this incident, Inderjit Singh installed CCTV cameras outside his house. Manpreet allegedly returned on the nights of November 30 and January 10 and took selfies and photos of the security cameras. He sent these images to Gursimran to further intimidate the family and threatened to leak some objectionable photos of Amanpreet, the complainant mentioned. Manpreet eventually created a fake Instagram account to circulate “morphed, objectionable photos” of the victim alongside obscene comments, the police said.

Based on Inderjit Singh’s statement, a case was registered on January 14 at the Sangrur cyber crime police station under Sections 333 (house-trespass), 351(3) (criminal intimidation) and 79 (insult the modesty of a woman) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and Sections 67A and 66C of the IT Act, 2000. Manpreet was arrested on January 15. Police stated that an interrogation has been ongoing.