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WARNING: This story contains details of gun violence.
A brother and sister have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Peel Regional Police, claiming their parents, killed in a mistaken identity shooting, would still be alive if police had warned the family there might be an “imminent” threat to their safety.
The lawsuit alleges that days before the 2023 killings of Jagtar Sidhu and Harbhajan Sidhu, Peel police knocked on the door of their kids’ rented Caledon home looking for a man named “Bobby.”
The couple were visiting their children from India, who rented their home with two other friends. After getting interpretation help and telling officers they didn’t know of anyone by that name, police left about an hour later, the lawsuit says.
Almost four days after police visited, Jagtar, 57, and Harbhajan, 55, were shot and killed in an attack allegedly linked to former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding and a revenge plot for a stolen cocaine shipment, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed in 2025. Their daughter, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, was shot 13 times and survived.
Sidhu, 31, and her brother Gurdit Singh Sidhu, 29, are seeking over $80 million in damages.
Their statement of claim, obtained by CBC News, alleges that the tragedy could have been prevented because “police knew, or should have known” that residents living in the Caledon home “were in imminent and grave danger.”
Peel Regional Police have filed a statement of defence denying wrongdoing.
Police claim no ‘involvement or control’ over what happened to Sidhu family
The lawsuit claims that police who visited the Sidhu home “ought” to have known it was connected to a known Wedding associate, referred to as “Bobby,” alleging that officers were unaware of the connection “only because of their failure to carry out a reasonably diligent investigation.”
Police were aware of “a credible threat” to his life and failed to disclose that to the Sidhu family, the lawsuit claims.
Had police warned Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu when they spoke to them, they “would not have been killed” and their daughter would not have been “permanently injured,” the lawsuit claims.
“It was reasonably foreseeable that a failure to warn the plaintiffs would lead to their injury or death,” the statement of claim said.
Peel police’s statement of defence acknowledges officers visited the Caledon home, but says they did not have “any information to suggest that anyone residing at that address was … at any risk of injury.”
The statement of defence alleges police were looking to find the man referred to as Bobby because his home and a friend’s home were shot at earlier in the month, and police learned of a possible connection between those shootings and a fatal shooting of a man in a Mississauga industrial complex.
The Caledon home where members of the Sidhu family lived was listed as the address of a company where he may have been employed, and police visited the home in an attempt to “interview” and “warn” him about the possible connection, the statement of defence said.
Police also previously attempted to contact him at his house, according to the statement of defence.
The statement goes on to state that police believed the risk was limited to the man they were looking for and that they had no “involvement or control” over what happened to the Sidhu family.
WARNING: This video contains details of gun violence. Last November, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu says a man broke into her family’s Caledon, Ont., rental home and started shooting. She was shot 13 times, and her mother and father were killed. She spoke with CBC Toronto’s Talia Ricci about her recovery and her search for answers.
Surviving daughter seeking physical, emotional damages
After being shot 13 times, Sidhu spent months in the hospital and continues a “gruelling road to recovery” from injuries that “cause her constant physical pain,” the lawsuit claims.
She was repeatedly shot from her shoulder down to her legs and underwent an 18-hour surgery to save her life. Bullets that hit her throat and stomach rendered her unable to speak for a period of time. Another bullet that could not be removed remains “lodged” near her spine, the lawsuit says.
According to the statement of claim, Sidhu has been unable to work since the shooting. She suffers from nerve damage, mobility restrictions and “severe” anxiety.
While in the hospital in 2024, Sidhu recalled the night her parents were killed in an interview with CBC News.
“My father was shot in front of me. I heard my mother’s last screams. After that there was complete silence. Only the noises of gunshots,” she said.
Lawyers representing the Sidhu family did not respond to an interview request. Police declined to provide comment, saying the matter is before the courts.
