In a horrific act of vengeance, a 21-year-old Indian nursing student in Australia was abducted by her jilted ex-boyfriend from India, driven nearly 650 km and buried alive in South Australia state's remote Flinders Ranges, a court has heard.
Jasmeen Kaur from Adelaide City was killed by Tarikjot Singh in March 2021, a month after reporting him to the police for stalking.
Kaur was abducted from her workplace on March 5, 2021, and driven more than 400 miles (644 km) while bound with cable ties in the boot of a car Singh had borrowed from his flatmate, news.com.au portal and other websites reported on Wednesday.
He buried Kaur in a shallow grave after making “superficial” cuts to her throat which were not enough to kill her and she was aware of her surroundings when she died at some point on March 6.
Singh pleaded guilty to the murder but the horrific details of his crime came to light during sentencing submissions at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Carmen Matteo said the murder was “not efficient” and Kaur 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,” Matteo said.
Kaur’s family, including her mother, were in the court to hear the sentencing submissions.
The court heard Singh planned the killing because he was unable to get over the breakdown of their relationship.
“The way in which Kaur was killed involved, really, an uncommon level of cruelty,” 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,” she said.
Singh wrote several messages to Kaur in the lead-up to her death that he never ended up sending.
“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,” one message said.
Singh initially denied murder, saying Kaur had committed suicide and that he had buried the body, but pleaded guilty before he was due to stand trial earlier this year.
He took officers to her burial site where they found Kaur's shoes, glasses, and work name badge in a bin, alongside looped cable ties.
He was caught on CCTV hours before the murder at a Bunnings in Mile End buying gloves, cable ties, and a shovel.
He faces a mandatory life sentence, with the court to impose a non-parole period next month.
His lawyer wants him to be given a more merciful sentence, partly because they labelled it a "crime of passion".