UMVA has learned that a 26‑year‑old Mississauga man has pleaded guilty to a brutal assault that preceded the mysterious disappearance of Elnaz Hajtamiri.
In a tense Newmarket courtroom, Sukhpreet Singh admitted to aggravated assault for the December 2021 attack on the Richmond Hill woman inside an underground parking garage. The assault left Hajtamiri with a deep gash to her forehead after a frying pan was wielded against her, forcing her to the hospital for emergency care.
Hajtamiri vanished a month later, abducted from her home in Wasaga Beach on January 12, 2022, and is now presumed dead. Police described the earlier assault as a botched kidnapping that a passerby thwarted, but the tragedy escalated when three masked figures, dressed in police‑style gear, seized her.
Singh’s capture came after three years on the run. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers seized him in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2025, and he was extradited to Ontario last October to face multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.
The court heard Singh arrived from India in 2020 to study business marketing at Sheridan College, only to have his plans shattered by the pandemic. Desperate to support his mother and sister back home, he slipped into a criminal lifestyle.
As part of his plea agreement, Singh received credit for 18 months already served and is now in the custody of the Canadian Border Services Agency, awaiting deportation back to India.
Investigators later uncovered that Hajtamiri had gone into hiding after the initial attack, fearing her former boyfriend, Mohamad Lilo of Montreal. In early May, Lilo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap Hajtamiri, a deal that led prosecutors to drop first‑degree murder charges against him, bolstered by Singh’s testimony.
Lilo was also convicted last June of aggravated assault linked to the failed kidnapping attempt, sealing a grim chapter in a case that still haunts the community.
