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Family violence haunts
Indo-Canadians in Vancouver again,
1 killed
WSN Network
VANCOUVER:
Vancouver has been making deathly news repeatedly for the Sikh
Diaspora. Yet another Indo-Canadian man has killed his wife in the
city of
Surrey
near here.
Fifty-three-year-old Harpaljit Singh Sandhu reportedly shot dead his
45-year-old wife Manjit on August 19 after a family dispute in their
rented apartment in the
Newton
neighbourhood of Surrey which has a huge concentration of Indian
immigrants. The couple's 23-year-old daughter Sabrina Sandhu was
also injured in the attack.
Sandhu appeared
in court next day where he was charged with second-degree murder of
killing his wife and attempted murder of his daughter. Their two
sons - Manraj, 19, and Sukhman 12, was left unharmed. The family was
planning to move the city of
Penticton where
Sandhu runs a taxi service.
"This is another
setback to the image of the Indo-Canadian community which has been
badly damaged by family violence and deaths of our many youths in
drug and gang wars," community leader and retired psychologist
Balwant Sanghera said.
Sanghera said it
was high time that the Indo-Canadian community confronted the issue
of family violence openly. This was the fourth incident in the city
of Surrey
during the past 20 months when a husband has killed his own wife. In
2006, three Indo-Canadian husbands killed their wives after family
disputes in just one month of October.
Indo-Canadians
constitute about 25 per cent of
Surrey city's
population of 400,000. These include two MPs - Sukh Dhaliwal and
Neena Grewal. Ujjal Dosanjh, who became the first coloured premier
of
British Columbia
in Feb 2000, is the third Indo-Canadian MP from the
Vancouver
area.
27 August, 2008
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