Thaindian News

Vancouver, April 8 (IANS) A Punjab man in the Sikh-dominated city of Abbotsford near here was Thursday jailed for two years for terrorizing his white tenant family.

Paramjeet Jandu, who was arrested six months ago, went on a rampage in October with the intention of throwing out his tenant family so that he could rent it to a new tenant at higher rate.

The court sentenced him for uttering threats, attempted arson and trying to burn down the house by pouring cooking oil over a hot stove.

He was also banned for lifetime from carrying firearms and ordered to undergo three years’ probation.

Jandu, 42, lived in the basement suite of his house and had rented the upstair portion to Brian Tjepkema and his family
of three.

The court heard how Jandu went on a rampage, swearing, yelling and banging around his basement suite, and threatening to set the house on fire October 13 last year.

The scared tenant family barricaded themselves and called police to save them.

The court ordered Jandu to undergo psychiatric evaluations but he refused and expressed no remorse for his rampage.

A city of about about 140,000 people, Abbotsford has the third largest concentration of South Asians in Canada after Toronto and Vancouver.

At more than 25,000, the Sikhs constitute more than 20 percent of the city’s population.

Abbotsford is also home to the first Sikh shrine in North America. The shrine - called Gur Sikh Temple - was opened in 1911 and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Because of its historical significance, the Canadian government put the shrine on its national heritage list in 2002.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)