|
Man who buried his
4-year-old daughter pleads guilty
WSN
Network
SUFFOLK: 51-year-old
Parmjit Singh, accused of burying his 4-year-old daughter on the
side of the Long Island Expressway 18 years ago, has pleaded guilty
to manslaughter in a plea bargain just when the process of jury
selection had begun.
In exchange for his guilty plea to second-degree manslaughter and
hindering prosecution, Suffolk County Court Judge C. Randall
Hinrichs will sentence him to 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison on Feb. 13.
Parmjit Singh has
already spent nearly two years in prison while awaiting trial, and
would be eligible for parole before the end of the year. Prosecutors
said his ex-wife, Khairual Abdul, 43, killed their daughter,
Jennifer Shafiq, in their Queens basement apartment in December 1990
in a fit of rage after the kid had urinated on herself. Abdul threw
Jennifer to the ground, investigators said, causing her to hit her
head and die. The girl had just been reunited with her birth parents
after spending most of her life with a foster family.
After learning that
Abdul had killed their daughter, Parmjit drove the girl's body out
and buried her on the side of the road. A hiker discovered the
girl's skeletal remains six years later, but police were able to
identify her only in 2005 after Parmjit and Abdul were arrested in
Sacramento, Calif.
Abdul, who had
accused Parmjit of killing Jennifer, was convicted of second-degree
murder and sentenced last month to 25 years to life in prison.
John Collins, Suffolk
chief trial prosecutor, said the plea offer to Parmjitwas in view of
the fact that he came forward to police in 2005, leading to the
couple's arrest. Prosecutors believed he had no hand in his
daughter's abuse.
Incidentally, in
Punjab, from where most members of the Sikh community hail, the sex
ratio is very alarming and cases of female foeticide or infanticide
are rampant. Sikhism, as a religion, has one of the strongest
prohibitions on anyone killing his daughter and the crime is looked
down upon very seriously.
23 January 2008
|
Read Also