Sixteen years after Mukhtiar Pangali strangled his pregnant wife and burned her body, the Parole Board of Canada granted him six months of day parole to be served in a community correctional centre.
The board says a May evaluation of Pangali’s corrections plan found he showed increased accountability and improvements in attitude and was downgraded from high to medium risk of requiring intervention.
Pangali, a former high school teacher in Surrey, British Columbia, reported his wife Manjeet Pangali missing in October 2006. Police found her badly burned body five days later.
An investigation eventually determined that Pangali strangled his wife in their home and then took her body to neighboring Delta, British Columbia to try to cover up the crime.
He was arrested in 2007 and charged with second-degree murder. In 2011, he was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 15 years.
Panghali has been in a minimum-security prison since 2016. The parole board said in its decision that he appears to have taken responsibility for his actions and made noticeable efforts to change, despite initially pleading not guilty and unsuccessfully appealing his conviction in 2012
“Reports indicate that you have expressed deep regret for your ‘regressive and rather archaic attitudes and beliefs about marriage and intimate relationships,'” the board’s statement said, adding that Pangali had completed a number of courses in anger management, non-violent communication and integration in the community while incarcerated.
“[Correctional Services Canada] reported that there is little more you can do within an institutional setting to address your risk factors as you have exhausted the available programs,” they said.
Mukhtiar Pangali is seen in a courtroom sketch while on trial for murdering his wife. (CBC)
The parole board noted that Pangali had participated in 50 escorted temporary absences, as well as several unaccompanied departures to visit family, all “without incident.”
According to the report authorizing his parole, Pangali respected his daughter’s wish to have no contact. She was raised by Manjit’s sister Pangali.
The women’s lawyer was “sickened” by the early release decision
Neenu Kang, executive director of the Association to End Violence in British Columbia, said hearing that Pangali had been granted a day’s parole brought her back to the moment he killed his wife.
“Honestly, I’m sick of it,” she told the CBC, adding that she remembers considering leaving the profession at the time.
“This particular crime, followed by a number of other South Asian women killed in the community … was too much for me,” she said.
Neenu Kang of the BC Association to End Violence says the news that Mukhtiar Pangali received a day’s parole could make other victims of gender-based violence feel like “there’s no justice.” (Tina Lovegreen/CBC)
Khan says she immediately thought about the life of a young woman and her unborn child that had been taken, and the impact the “horrifying” murder had on Manjit Pangali’s daughter, family and loved ones.
She also worries about how the news might affect other women who have been victims of gender-based violence.
“Sometimes it feels like there’s no justice,” she said. “A woman can be murdered, and the man who killed her can, within a few years of being behind bars, come out and … live in relative freedom.”
Kang says he believes in teaching men to understand that women are their equals and teaching them how to “show up differently as men” in today’s society. She also hopes to see better protections for victims.
“I think the judiciary still needs to continue to do a better job in terms of policies, practices,” she said. “To ensure that victims are safe and that victims have their rights.”
“And I think we need to do a better job … making sure that behavior is contained and that women and non-binary people are safer in our society.”
Parole
Conditions imposed on Panghali during his six-month parole include not using alcohol or drugs, having no contact with the victim’s family and reporting all relationships and attempts to start relationships with women to a parole officer.
While the parole board said it believed Pangali could successfully reintegrate into society, it said the “serious and violent nature” of his crime had not been lost on them.
“Your actions were callous and mean-spirited and have left the victim’s family significantly traumatized,” the report said, adding that they were still considered aggravating factors.
The board said the fact that Pangali had no prior criminal record was a mitigating factor in its decision.
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