Bakshinderpal Singh Mann who helped bury his newborn and then fled to Canada has finally been sentenced in California.
A disturbing case that started with an unlawful sexual relationship, which resulted in the woman becoming pregnant and giving birth to a baby who was immediately killed and buried, came to an end last month in California after 31-year-old Bakshinderpal Singh Mann was sentenced to six years in prison with credit for time served. Mann was the last defendant in the case, and he pleaded no contest to his role in the child’s death last year.
The case
The sickening case took place in 2018 when Beant Dhillon, the grandmother of the baby, drowned and was killed in November. She told the investigators that she killed the baby because he daughter was a minor and unmarried.The unwed mother was 15 years old when she was impregnated by 23-year-old Mann. The mother concealed hr pregnancy until she gave birth in the bathroom of the family’s Bakersfield home on November 12, 2018. Dhillon immediately took the baby and drowned because she feared that her unmarried daughter’s pregnancy would bring shame upon the family within the local Sikh community.Investigators said Mann helped bury the baby’s body in a shallow grave in the backyard.Jagsir Singh, the father of the teenage mother, told police he wasn’t home during the birth and death of the baby but was told what had happened afterward, according to a police report. He told police he allowed the baby to be buried in the backyard and did not seek medical attention for his daughter because he was worried his wife would kick him out of the house and he might be deported.
The discovery of the case
There was no report about the murder of the newborn and no one else knew what happened. The teenage mother lost consciousness after giving birth and was later told that the baby was given for adoption. Months later, after a family dispute in which she learned the child had actually been buried behind the house, she confided in school counselors, who alerted police. Investigators recovered the infant’s remains from the backyard on February 26, 2019.Mann was already under immigration supervision and had a GPS monitor on him. But after the discovery of the baby’s remains, Mann removed his GPS monitor and fled to Canada, where he stayed for two years. He was arrested in Canada in 2021 and remained in Canadian custody as the extradition proceedings were completed.He was returned to Kern County in late 2024, entered a plea agreement in September 2025, and was sentenced in June. Defense attorney Elliott Magnus said the years Mann spent in custody in Canada counted toward his sentence. “Hopefully this brings closure for everyone and they’re able to move on,” Magnus said following the sentencing.
What happened to others?
Dhillon was convicted of first-degree murder in 2020 and is serving a sentence of 29 years in prison. Jagsir Singh, who had been charged as an accessory, died by suicide after posting bail in 2019.
