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August 4, 1975: Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu is born in Maple Ridge, British
Columbia.
1977: Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu , also known as Mittoo, is born the
Punjab, India.
1991 and onwards: The village of Kaonke, in the Punjab, becomes a
stronghold of the Sikh militancy. Police round up boys in large numbers.
Mittoo is one of eight picked up on suspicion and taken to the CIA office
of Joginder Singh. He is brutally interrogated for a week. A local politician
finally gets him released.
1992 onwards: Mittoo plays Khabaddi, an athletic form of team tag.
He plays 10 to 12 tournaments a month, earning very small amounts of
prize money.
1992: Police arrest Mittoo for a second time. He is beaten severely
enough so that he is forced to stop playing khabaddi for 6 to 7 months.
1993: Mittoo begins his career as an auto rickshaw driver, a very low-paying
kind of work.
1993: Mittoo begins playing khabaddi again and becomes a local star.
Jassi and Mittoo fall in love in 1995
1995: At age 19, Mittoo meets Jassi who is visiting the Punjab from
Canada with her mother, her maternal aunt and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha.
It is love at first sight.
A friend of Jassi's agrees to be a go-between for the mismatched lovers. They
meet privately at Romi's house and take oaths of living and dying together.
1995-99: Home in British Columbia, Jassi writes letters to Mittoo, sent to him
via a friend. They also arrange to speak on the phone.
January – February 1999: Jassi's family goes to India for three months. The
purpose of the visit is to arrange a marriage for Jassi. She turns down all of
the suggested matches.
March 15, 1999: Jassi and Mittoo marry secretly at a temple in Ludihana in
the Punjab and spend their first night together in a hotel.
April 19, 1999: Jassi registers the marriage in India.
Rumors begin to spread about the secret wedding. Jassi's family is told that
she has married a poor man, but Jassi denies the story.
June 1999: Jassi's family finds out about the marriage
and demands that she divorce Mittoo. The mother and the uncle beat Jassi.
Jassi's mother and uncle, saying they are going to buy a car for her, convince
her to put her signature on a blank piece of paper.
CONTINUED
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