Ottawa: Three India-origin persons were killed in Canada during the last seven days -- two cases of homicide, while one died in a group clash -- even as their friends worry they were the target of a racial hate crime, according to media reports.
Edmonton resident Birinder Singh, 22, was shot and killed while driving on a highway south of Leduc on March 14; while on March 13, Davinder Singh, 31, died during a workplace shooting at North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and Gurkirat Singh Manocha, 25, became a victim of an “altercation” outside Fort St John the same day.
“We just heard a gunshot, and within a minute, everything happened, everything has changed,” Birinder’s friend, who was in the car with him and another friend, was quoted as saying by Global News on Tuesday.
In the second case, in Canada’s British Columbia, student Gurkirat Singh Manocha, who had relocated to Fort St John to pursue a business management degree, was fatally injured during an altercation at the Charlie Lake boat ramp around 11:10 pm on Friday, BC Wire news portal said on Monday.
RCMP officers arrived to find him critically wounded, and despite emergency interventions, he could not be saved, it added.
Gurkirat had relocated from Ujjain in India to study at Fort St John College.
The North District Major Crimes Unit has taken over the investigation and is working to determine exactly what happened that night, the BC Wire said.
In the third case, CTV News said that Davinder Singh was driving for Crown Cab on March 13 when he responded to a call at the Hitching Post Motel.
“Singh had no way of knowing when he accepted that fare that it would be his last. Later, just before 8 am, the RCMP were called to the
motel with a report of an injured man. Singh was found unresponsive in the parking lot and declared dead at the scene by paramedics,” CTV News said.