'We need justice': Wife of Sikh man slain in Canada New Year day shooting
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Jan, 2023 10:46 AM
Toronto, Jan 17 (IANS) The wife of a 51-year-old Sikh man, who was shot dead when intruders broke into his Mill Woods house in Canada on New Year, has said that she needs swift justice for her husband.
Barinder Singh, who hails from Punjab and had moved to Edmonton in 2019 along with family, was asleep when intruders broke into his house at Mill Woods Road and started firing, the Global News reported.
Police responded to a disturbance around 2.45 a.m., and arrived at the complex in the Pollard Meadows neighbourhood to find an injured 51-year-old man lying in a pool of blood.
"It's all like a nightmare for us," a shattered Jasjeet Kaur, wife of Singh, told Global News.
Singh was taken to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The autopsy revealed that he died from gunshot wounds and the medical examiner said that the manner of death was a homicide.
"We need justice. I just want to know who did this. I need to know. Whya Why my family was the target? And it was not just him -- it was the whole family," Jasjeet Kaur told the Canadian news channel. "I want the culprits. I want to know the reason why it happened."
A GoFundMe page set up for Singh described him as an "honest, family man who worked hard to provide for his family".
"(He was) a devoted son, a good brother and a caring father -- he kept us going through good times and tough times. Through his work, he supported my grandparents in Punjab, while providing for us in Delhi, India," the page quoted his two daughters as saying.
Police said it is still working to establish a motive for this violent crime. So far, the homicide unit has found a burnt-out white Dodge Ram truck in the nearby Laurel neighbourhood, which they think is connected to the crime.
They are looking for home security and dashcam footage in the area where the burned-out truck was located.
Rain and wind warnings cover much of Vancouver Island and the inner south coast as the remnants of a storm that brought flooding to California now hammers southern B.C. Environment Canada estimates total rainfall of 50 to 100 millimetres before conditions ease Friday.
The New Westminster Police Department Major Crime Unit has learned the victim was assaulted by someone who was with two other people at the time of the assault. After the assault, the group left the area in a vehicle, and investigators are hoping by sharing video of this vehicle, a suspect will be identified.
VPD officers responded to Granville and Robson Street around 6 p.m. Monday, after a witness reported seeing a man with a gun inside a bar. Marcus Phillip Van Schilt, 45, is now charged with possession of a weapon and breaching bail.
Poverty, economic instability, and disruptions due to climate change are pushing an increasing number of people to seek security in places such as Canada and the United States, says France-Isabelle Langlois of Amnesty International Canada's French-language division.
Zachary Armitage was sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole for 25 years for the first-degree murder of Martin Payne in what B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Crossin called a senseless, shocking and grotesque attack. The murder in July 2019 was "absolutely cowardly, without qualification," Crossin told Armitage.
A statement from the service says it's aiming to hire up to 40 Crown counsel this year, some to fill vacancies created by the dedication of prosecutors to repeat violent offender response teams. Those teams are part of the province's safer communities action plan launched by Premier David Eby soon after he was sworn in last November.
