A nursing student was abducted by her jilted ex-boyfriend and buried alive in Australia’s Flinders Ranges in a horrific act of vengeance, a court has heard.
Jasmeen Kaur, 21, from Adelaide, was killed by Tarikjot Singh in March 2021.
Singh pleaded guilty to murder but horrific new details of his crime came to light during sentencing submissions at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Jasmeen was abducted from her workplace on March 5 and driven more than 400 miles while bound with cable ties in the boot of a car Singh had borrowed from his flatmate.
Singh then made “superficial” cuts to Jasmeen’s throat and buried her in a shallow grave.
The injuries to her neck were not enough to kill her she was aware of her surroundings when she died at some point on March 6.
Prosecutor Carmen Matteo said the murder was “not efficient” and Jasmeen was “made to suffer.”
“She had to have been consciously suffering what could only be described as the absolute terror of breathing in and swallowing soil and dying in that way,” Ms Matteo said.
Kaur’s family, including her mother, were in court to hear the sentencing submissions.
Jasmeen was murdered one month after reporting Singh to the police for stalking.
The court heard Singh planned the killing because he was unable to get over the breakdown of their relationship.
“The way in which Ms. Kaur was killed involved, really, an uncommon level of cruelty,” Ms. Matteo said.
“It’s not known when her throat was cut, it’s not known when or how she got into or was placed into that burial grave and it’s not known when that was dug, other than the prosecution says it had to have been while she was still alive and in preparation for her burial.
“[It was] a killing that was committed as an act of vengeance or as an act of revenge.”
The court heard how Singh wrote several messages to Jasmeen in the lead-up to her death that he never ended up sending.
One said: “Your bad luck that I am still alive, cheap, wait and watch, will get the answer, each and every single one will get the answer.”
Singh initially denied murder, saying Jasmeen had committed suicide and that he had buried the body.
He took officers to her burial site where they found Jasmeen’s shoes, glasses, and work name badge in a bin, alongside looped cable ties.
Singh was told in court he will be jailed for life.
