WARNING: This story contains distressing content
The ex-boyfriend of aged care worker and nursing student, Jasmeen Kaur, has been sentenced to a long stint in prison for her murder with a non-parole period of 22 years and 10 months.
At an Adelaide Supreme Court trial on Tuesday, Tarikjot Singh – who was also a carer at Ms Kaur’s workplace – was found to have abducted the 21-year-old after a shift at Bucklands aged care home at North Plympton in March 2021. He then bound her with tape and cable ties before burying her alive in a shallow grave in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges.
The court heard that Mr Singh and Ms Kaur’s relationship ended in early 2021 and a few weeks later Ms Kaur went to the police with her concerns about her ex-boyfriend’s behaviour. Justice Adam Kimber was “unable to find words” to encapsulate the horror of the events, but said the evidence was clear Ms Kaur had undergone extreme suffering.
“You killed Ms Kaur in order to punish her for not wanting to be in a relationship with you and for going to the police… I am unable to find words to adequately describe how Ms Kaur must have felt when you placed her in the grave and buried her,” he said.
The court heard police cautioned Mr Singh for stalking in early February 2021 and that Mr Singh wrote several unsent messages to Ms Kaur in the days leading up to her murder.
It also heard how Mr Singh denied any involvement with Ms Kaur’s death, claiming he buried her body after she had taken her own life.
Mr Singh initially pleaded not guilty to the murder but changed his plea a month before his trial was due to start in March 2023.
The mandatory head sentence for murder is life imprisonment and Mr Singh – a student from India – will likely be deported when he is eventually released from jail.
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He should have received life sentence without release for such a vile and violent crime. To brutally take the life of someone so young and bury her alive is difficult to comprehend.
What is also terrifying is that this monster was working in aged care looking after frail, often voiceless elderly people.
What type of management was in place to monitor care given? Heaven help anyone in aged care who he didn’t like!