GUILTY Canada - Poonam Litt, 27, pregnant, Brampton, Ont, 4 Feb 2009

http://www.peelpolice.on.ca/Crime%20Files/Missing%20Persons.aspx

Investigators from the 21 Division Criminal Investigation Bureau are seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing woman from Brampton.

On Thursday, February 5, 2009, at 9:00 a.m., 27 year-old Poonam LITT left her family residence, in the area of Bramalea Road and Bovaird Drive East. Her intended destination was her place of employment, which is located in the area of Torbram Road and Bovaird Drive East. Mrs. Litt never arrived at work and her whereabouts are still unknown.

Mrs. Litt has no vehicle and normally walks to work. Investigators are concerned for Mrs. Litt’s wellbeing, as an absence this lengthy is extremely out of character.

Mrs. Litt is described as:

Female, South Asian
5'4", 130 lbs.
brown eyes
black shoulder-length hair
age: 27 years old
Last seen wearing:

black coat
blue jeans
Mrs. LITT’s family has provided officers with video footage of her and it has been posted on You Tube. Members of the public are encouraged to watch this video and report any information they may have regarding the whereabouts of Mrs. LITT.

The video has been posted in both Punjabi and in English.

Follow the link to view the video, [YouTube - English] [YouTube - Punjabi]

Response:
Anyone who may know the whereabouts of Poonam LITT or has information, are requested to contact Peel Regional Police, 21 Criminal Investigation Bureau at (905) 453-3311 ext. 2135 - Det. Kim Taylor, or Peel Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
 
Investigators now suspect foul play in a baffling missing person case involving a 27-year-old pregnant mother of toddler, according to a published report.

Poonam Litt disappeared more than a year ago.

The Toronto Sun reports the Peel Regional Police homicide squad has taken over the case and are honing in on the woman’s in-laws.

More here: Foul Play Suspected in Missing Woman Case - April 14, 2010
 
Another article, providing a bit of info about the in-laws' attitude and background.

New twists in strange case of Poonam Litt

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/04/15/13604556.html



Despite that startling tone, the Litt family seems remarkably at ease — as if nothing has occurred. Each member I have spoken with has said nothing untoward happened inside their “happy” household and that pregnant Poonam must have met her misfortune en route to her dental office job.


Dr. Roopali Sharma said knowing Poonam “it is my feeling she did not leave for work because her key to the office was still at home after she disappeared.”

Actually all of her personal effects remained at the home.
 
One the many mysteries in this story is that someone left the home in a minivan that day between 1-4 a.m.

Peel Police’s homicide squad has taken over the case, saying they consider it to be “foul play” and that there are people in this home who are “haunted” and “lying” and that it’s only a matter of time before the “truth” of this “despicable family secret” is realized.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/04/15/13604556.html

The second quote pretty much says it all.
 
http://www.vamban.com/25000-award-for-missing-sikh-woman-family-suspect/

Toronto, April 16 – A Sikh family here is under investigation after the disappearance of its daughter-in-law in February. Her husband has meanwhile announced an award of $25,000 for clues about her whereabouts.

Poonam Litt, who worked as a receptionist with a dentist, went missing Feb 5 on her way to work. She has never been heard of and there have been no clues about her whereabouts.

The woman, who leaves behind a three-year-old daughter, was reportedly pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

Since violence against women is common in South Asian homes here, police are not ruling out foul play.
 
How frustrating this must be for her parents. :(
 
Here's hoping this case is resolved quickly. It sounds like the Peel police are focused on family members and suspect foul play!

I haven't seen anything new on this in the last couple of weeks, but a couple of particularly disturbing/frustrating aspects are noted in these articles:

from April 9, 2010

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/04/09/13532686.html

<snip>
While a missing woman&#8217;s mother cries at the news her daughter was pregnant, Poonam Litt&#8217;s husband said he will probe his own family to see if anyone has information on her bizarre disappearance.

Manjinder Singh Litt, 31, said he will start with his 61-year-old father, Kulwant Singh Litt.

&#8220;I will ask (Saturday),&#8221; said Manjinder, adding it will be the first time he has talked with his father about this since Feb. 5, 2009 &#8212; the day his 27-year-old wife vanished.


<snip>
....said at that time his father told him &#8220;he had left for work at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., hours before she disappeared at 9 a.m.&#8221;

Manjinder said he left it at that and assumed something happened to his wife on her way to work.

&#8220;He is old world,&#8221; he said of his father who came from India in 2000. &#8220;We don&#8217;t talk about it.&#8221; In fact, he said, since his father has had trouble with the law during the 14 months following, he said &#8220;we don&#8217;t speak any more at all&#8221; despite living under the same roof.

and just a week later, this:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/04/15/13592851-qmi.html

<snip>
But Manjinder, who was in India with his mother when his wife vanished, said Wednesday that while he is co-operating, he does not believe there are any family secrets. "I have asked my father and sister so many times," he said.

<snip>
But holding their 31/2-year-old baby Kirinjot in his driveway, Manjinder said he is satisfied there is nothing untoward going on inside his home and that Internet innuendo of a conspiracy and a crime of honour are simply "not true."

Declaring that "I want my woman back," he said the Litt household is "happy" and added rhetorically: "If they (dad and sister) have any information, why don't they pass it along to police?"

So, let's see, at first Manjinder says he isn't on speaking terms with his father (a registered sex offender) and had not even talked to him about his wife's disappearance since the day she disappeared, over a year earlier. The very next week Manjinder says he "has asked his father and sister so many times..".

Notice any consistency problems with his statements? :banghead:
 
Here's a slightly more recent article that I missed:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/04/22/13687021.html

This reporter has been sticking to this story while other media has pretty much ignored it. Good for him! In this article he managed to get an interview with the mother in law.

After 14 months of silence, the case came to the forefront again earlier this month when Poonam’s father-in-law, Kulwant, who has a 2007 sexual assault conviction, was back before the courts on a criminal harassment stalking charge of a former female mistress whom he was ordered to not go near after previously pleading guilty for stalking.

Supinder said her once noble husband has “shamed” the family and, with him having his own room, she rarely speaks to him anymore.

Although family members have told her “they don’t know anything,” Supinder said, if someone has done something wrong, or there was an “accident,” they should “admit what they have done and close the story for Kiranjot and so that everybody knows what happened to Poonam.”
 
This is not a new article, but contains additional bits and pieces of info:
New twists in strange case of Poonam Litt
Last Updated: April 15, 2010 9:30pm

Now, the Sun has learned, her 31-year-old husband, Manjinder Litt, was before the courts in 2002 and convicted of a break, enter and theft in Brampton, which had a female complainant telling police she had been “non-sexually grabbed” during the incident.
Father-in-law Kulwant said he had left for work at 7 a.m. — two hours before his daughter, Mandeep, said Poonam handed her her two-year-old daughter, Kirinjot before walking to work.

But the Sun has learned that, before heading to India, Manjinder told the family Poonam was not to walk to work and had instructed his father to ensure the car be available to her to drive to and from the office.

Poonam, however, had complained to co-workers of a disagreement with Kulwant over the use of the car. However, Kulwant did drop it off for her at the dental office on Feb. 4 and it is understood Poonam had driven herself home from work the night before she went missing.

It is also understood she had access to the car the morning of her disappearance so there would have been no reason for to walk.
In another twist, court records show that 30-year-old Mandeep had on Aug. 13, 2009 bailed her father out of custody on a $5,000 surety with no deposit for his first harassment charge which later led to a guilty plea.

Then, a second time, she bailed him out April 1, 2010 on a second harassment charge and a breach of probation — a case before the courts. Mandeep, holding her niece Kirinjot at her Cordgrass Cres. home, said “somebody had to bail him out.”
Despite reports from others close to Poonam that she and Mandeep did not get along, Mandeep said this was untrue.

“We’re friends,” she said as she hugged Poonam’s daughter tightly and raised her eyes with a look of confusion.
read more = http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/04/15/13604556.html#/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/04/15/pf-13604556.html
 
Don't know much about this culture...but...

Is it possible that she would have been sexually assualted by her father-in-law and kept it quiet? Is it possible that she became a threat to him only after becoming pregnant...or others knowing she was pregnant? This family is horrible...regardless of their involvement or not, though I can't imagine why LE doesn't haul them in for questioning. How do you go an entire year without talking about your wife and daughter-in-law....how long did they wait to file a missing persons report?
 
Don't know much about this culture...but...

Is it possible that she would have been sexually assualted by her father-in-law and kept it quiet? Is it possible that she became a threat to him only after becoming pregnant...or others knowing she was pregnant? This family is horrible...regardless of their involvement or not, though I can't imagine why LE doesn't haul them in for questioning. How do you go an entire year without talking about your wife and daughter-in-law....how long did they wait to file a missing persons report?

It would be great if someone familiar with South Asian culture (in this case Punjabi Sikh, I believe) came on this thread. Clearly there are cultural factors at work here, but I certainly don't understand them. Everyone remains in the patriarchal house, even though they all appear to be very angry and essentially don't have any 'relationship' with the father anymore. Perhaps the daughter (Poonam's SIL) keeps bailing her father out of jail because it's her 'duty' as she lives in his house. Curiously, I have seen no specific mention of the SIL's husband in any of the news articles, other than he lives there.
 
Missing woman's kin quizzed by cops
Last Updated: May 11, 2010 7:05pm

[snipped...] Toronto Police quizzed the father-in-law of a missing Brampton woman after another woman complained about “inappropriate behaviour” outside the Woodbine Mall, the Toronto Sun learned.

Toronto cruisers went to the Cordgrass Cr, family home of missing 27-year-old Poonam Litt on May 6 after being called by a woman.

Police sources allege the 25-year-old woman said she was approached at a bus stop and asked if she would like a ride. She called police.

“The woman was not harmed,” said a 23 Division officer who didn’t want to be identified. “No charges have been laid at this time but the investigation is on-going.

“We did speak to Mr. Kulwant Litt at his home on May 6,” said the officer. “We were responding to the concerns of a woman who complained of inappropriate behaviour and conduct outside of the Woodbine Mall on Rexdale Blvd,”

Poonam’s father-in-law is before the courts on a criminal harassment stalking charge of another woman, who he was earlier convicted of stalking.

The 61-year-old was also convicted in 2007 of sexual assault.

More here
 
KL seems like such a stand-up guy, doesn't he?
 
This is from Dec 30 2010
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/913884--a-long-season-of-hope-and-dread

&#8220;Why don&#8217;t I have a mommy . . . where is she?&#8221;

It was a question Manjinder Litt had been preparing to answer for some time, but when it finally came, his voice trembled and tears sprang to his eyes.

&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; he told K*******, his 4-year-old daughter. &#8220;But I hope she comes back home soon.&#8221;

Litt, a trucker who was visiting India when his wife went missing, was stunned. &#8220;I&#8217;m still shaken,&#8221; he says in a recent interview. &#8220;First, I was going insane thinking what could have happened to Poonam &#8230; now police say someone in my family may be involved. I don&#8217;t know whether to grieve my wife or be angry with my family.&#8221;

While indications from police are that Poonam is dead, Litt refuses to believe them. He hasn&#8217;t held a funeral or organized the customary Sikh prayers.
 
Litt&#8217;s body was found in a field, described as &#8220;well-treed&#8221; by police inspectors, off Willoughby road.
The owners of the property where Litt&#8217;s body was found are not persons-of-interest,
Peel police said during a press conference on Thursday.

----------------------

Police are continuing their search
of the Wolloughby road area in Caledon on Thursday as they continue to look for, what Peel Police Inspector George Koekkoek called &#8220;suspicious items."

http://www.globaltoronto.com/police...+missing+brampton+woman/6442619494/story.html
 
I'm so sorry Poonam. You didn't deserve this. No one deserves being so isolated and alone...only to be taken advantage of.

Sweet dreams young woman. May someone carry your torch for you with your young child, unlike this horrible family. My thoughts are with your true loved ones, the family you were born into.

799236504af9baa4bf91c3a80a7a.jpg


Poonam Litt. The saddest eyes I've ever seen. :(

May justice prevail. You didn't deserve to be thrust into this horrible family. JMO. I can only hope that there is at least one person in your 'in-law' family that has a spine and will stand up for you and has the true human caring spirit to step forward and tell what truly happened. We all know it's just not right. Let someone step forward and have peace in the rest of their life. MOO

Rest in peace Poonam. People who have never met you care about you. Wishing you freedom and love.


:rose: :rose: :rose:
 

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