Haunted by Daughter's Murder

Amritsar : After fighting a lonely battle to get his son-in-law convicted for killing his daughter in Canada four years back and for getting the custody of his grandson, 58-year-old Dilbag Singh Gill had thought that his government job and agricultural land would take care of the future of his remaining children as well as the grandson. However, that was not to be.  Today, on the one hand, he is struggling to get his service benefits restored after being thrown out of the job and, on the other hand, he is allegedly receiving threats from the kin of her daughter’s in-laws that they will either usurp his land or kidnap his grandson, now five years old, studying in a school in Amritsar. Neither the Police Department nor the Education Department was ready to listen to redress his woes. Nevertheless, on October 29, 2006, Dilbag, a JBT teacher at Government Elementary Primary School, Chogwan, got a telephone call that his daughter, Navreet Waraich, had been stabbed to death by his son-in-law, in the basement of her Surrey, Canada, home. Next day, Dilbag and his wife flew to Canada on temporary resident visa to be part of their daughter’s funeral procession. Meanwhile, his son-in-law was awarded life imprisonment by a Canadian court. The Child Ministry in Canada handed over the custody of their grandson, Bramveer Waraich, just five-month old then. “After three and a half years’ legal battle, the court gave the guardianship of the child and permitted me to take him along to India,” he said. Reaching here in November 2009, he got another jolt to know that his services had been terminated from April 2009, by the Education Department. Consequently, all his service benefits had been stalled. This despite the fact that he had kept the department in the loop about the entire matter. “I had applied for without pay leave from Canada. The department just got published termination warning notice in national newspapers and did not inform me at my home either in Canada or India,” he said. He moved the high court, which directed him to file an appeal with the department concerned, before issuing the final verdict in his case. Dilbag filed an appeal with the Director, Public Instructions (Elementary), Chandigarh, in August, but till date, he has not received any response. Dr Sadhu Singh Randhawa, DPI (Elementary), Chandigarh, said he would soon be called up to explain his case while SSP, Rural, Gurmeet S. Chauhan said an inquiry would be marked on priority.