'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.
A preliminary report released by the service shows there were 247 deaths of people experiencing homelessness last year. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe says many homeless people are facing significant health concerns, including physical disabilities, mental-health challenges and substance-use issues.
Coquitlam Front-line officers attended the area of Sunnyside Road and East Road in Anmore after a male suspect assaulted a taxi driver with a beer bottle. The male suspect hit the glass partition inside the taxi causing the glass to shattered.
Several witnesses reported seeing two people fighting near a bus stop at Dunbar and West 41st Avenue around 8:30 p.m. When VPD officers responded, they located a 17-year-old suffering from a number of life-threatening wounds. The victim was bleeding profusely, and a VPD officer applied pressure to the wounds to stem the bleeding.
The South Simcoe Police Service said police responded to a disturbance call in Innisfil, Ont., just before 8 p.m. Tuesday when the shooting took place. Ontario's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, said the two police officers who died were involved in a shooting with a 23-year-old man inside the home.
Statistics Canada data published last month confirmed that B.C. leads the country as the province with the highest rate of unaffordable homes, due largely to the number of people paying high rents to live in downtown Vancouver. The city's home price-income unaffordability is also routinely ranked among the worst in the world.
The brown marmorated stink bug, an invasive species in Canada, is thriving in the province this season thanks to summer-like weather extending into the fall months, experts say. Although population counts aren't readily available, the unwelcome intruder is earning notice across the Fraser Valley, Metro Vancouver and parts of the Okanagan, particularly Kelowna.
