Tarikjot Singh to serve longer jail time for horrific murder of Jasmeen Kaur after DPP appeal

A monster who buried his ex-girlfriend alive was given a “manifestly inadequate” sentence, with the court now coming down hard on the murderer.

A man who stalked and buried his ex-girlfriend alive in one of South Australia’s most horrific murders has been given even longer in jail.

Tarikjot Singh appeared in the South Australian Court of Appeal on Thursday following an application by the Director of Public Prosecution to appeal the 22-year, 10-month non-parole period handed down to the 24-year-old last year.

Prosecutor Jim Pearce KC said the starting point failed to “give effect” to the growing knowledge around domestic violence.

The Court of Appeal concluded Singh’s non-parole period was inadequate, giving him at least five years more behind bars.

It increased it to 30 years, discounted to 28 years and six months on account of his guilty plea.

Singh’s head sentence remains the same – life in prison.

This means Singh won’t be eligible for parole until September 2049, when he will be 49 years old.

The non-parole period was backdated to March 7, 2021.

Tarikjot Singh. Picture: Supplied

Mr Pearce previously told the Court of Appeal that Singh’s “pre-planned and calculated” crime was a cruel act of revenge.

“He set out to terrorise her and there was a cruelty to the way he killed her, a prolonged cruelty,” he said.

“This was cold-blooded, it was premeditated.

“It was carried out as an act of revenge on someone who was vulnerable.”

Supreme Court Justice Adam Kimber sentenced Singh to life in prison last year with a non-parole period of 22 years and 10 months, reduced by 5 per cent to account for his guilty plea from starting point of 24 years.

Mr Pearce said starting point was “so low” it amounted to “an implied error of principal” and led to a “manifestly inadequate” sentence.

“It fails to give effect to the burgeoning body of knowledge … that now exists around domestic violence,” Mr Pearce said.

He said a starting point of 24 years for this case “just simply erodes the sentencing standards for murder generally”.

Flinders Ranges murder victim Jasmeen Kaur.

Singh, 24, last year pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Kaur.

The Supreme Court had heard Singh abducted Ms Kaur from her Plympton workplace about 10pm on March 5, 2021.

She was restrained and driven to Moralana Creek, 40km north of Hawker in the Flinders Ranges, before Singh placed her alive – blindfolded and with her hands cable tied behind her back and feet bound – in a shallow grave.

The Family of Jasmeen Kaur, the victim of Tarikjot Singh arrive at a previous hearing in the district court in Adelaide. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Naomi Jellicoe

Ms Kaur died from inhaling soil, which had been found in her airways.

Martin Anders, for Singh, said that in sentencing Justice Kimber had appropriately considered his client’s mental health, his young age and emotional instability.

He also told the court his client was likely to face “retribution” for his crime when he is deported back to India on completion of his jail term.

A court previously heard Singh had made “superficial” cuts to Ms Kaur’s throat with an unknown object to stage her death as a suicide.

“(She) had inhaled and swallowed soil that had made its way as far as her lower oesophagus,” then-prosecutor Carmen Matteo SC said.

“She was actively breathing in and swallowing soil while she was alive. That was the manner in which she died.

The grieving family of murder victim Jasmeen Kaur at the site where her body was discovered buried in a shallow grave in the Flinders Ranges near Hawker. Picture: Tom Huntley

“She had to have been aware in those moments of the hopelessness of her situation. She had to have been consciously suffering what can only be described as the absolute terror or breathing in and swallowing soil and dying in that way.”

Ms Matteo also said Singh had failed to accept their relationship breakdown when he planned the murder.

She told the court Ms Kaur had made a complaint to police about Singh, her ex-boyfriend, stalking her about a month before she was killed.

Singh was formally cautioned by police on February 9, 2021.

Ms Matteo laid out evidence of Singh’s infatuation with Ms Kaur – including numerous messages he authored, but did not send, in which he made statements such as “your bad luck I am still alive”.

Originally published as Tarikjot Singh to serve longer jail time for horrific murder of Jasmeen Kaur after DPP appeal