TORONTO – Yet another young Indo-Canadian woman has become the victim of male violence after a Toronto school girl was allegedly killed by fellow school-mate stalker before he took his own life by allegedly jumping off or falling off an overpass and being run over by traffic.
The night that more than 100 people gathered at the site where 17-year-old teen Kiranjit Nijjar’s body was found Friday, the 16-year-old boy Akash Wadhwa, who was suspected in her death, died in hospital.
Peel regional police confirmed Wadhwa had “succumbed to his injuries” on Twitter Sunday evening.
Wadhwa, whose name had been withheld when he was alive because of his age, fell on to Hwy. 401 from the Mavis Rd. overpass two hours before Nijjar’s body was found.
According to Peel police he was likely run over by a car after he hit the road — given the nature of his injuries.
Before the events on Friday, Wadhwa had left a series of messages on Facebook, expressing his disappointment in life. One of the people he said goodbye to was 17-year-old Nijjar who called him her “best friend for life.”
Paramjit Sandhu, whose daughter was friends with Nijjar, had heard about the messages on Facebook. “If we knew he was a troubled kid, why didn’t anyone do anything?” he wondered.
“There is nothing else the school could have possibly done,” in Nijjar’s case said Brian Woodland with the Peel District School Board. While he couldn’t comment on Wadhwa’s situation due to privacy concerns, he stressed that for Nijjar, “Everything possible that could have been done was done.”
Sandhu, drove his daughter to the small memorial park on Spinnaker Circle off Mavis Road to pay their respects. The girl heard about her friend’s death in a Facebook message.
As Wadhwa lay dying in Sunnybrook hospital, friends and acquaintances of Nijjar held a vigil by candle light.
The police tape was gone and groups of threes and fours gathered around the young tree wreathed in flowers. Tapered candles, cups to catch dripping wax and lighters were passed around.
The adults stood back as the children grieved.
Cars drove by, their drivers slowing to stare at the crowd standing in silence.
One girl was pulled away from the crowd as she broke down, sobbing shudderingly as her friends held her close.
“Why do people die?” she asked.
The crowd ebbed and flowed as small clusters of people broke away to walk down the short path to the ravine behind the park. A gravel trail leads deep into the weeds and shrubs where Nijjar was discovered by police.
Sunday’s vigil was organized online. By nightfall the vigil was over and some were back on twitter thanking those who came out.
Nijjar is being mourned as a girl allegedly loved to death by a boy for whom she cared deeply – as a friend, with no encouragement for anything more. She was concerned enough about Wadhwa’s depressed mood and his hints at suicide that she confided her worries to her parents and a guidance counsellor at Mississauga Secondary School, where both teens attended classes.
She feared the boy would take his own life. She did not fear he might take hers.
“Kiran did everything right, she took all the proper steps,” said her cousin Romi Kler, 20.
“Everybody knew that he was depressed and suicidal,” said Kler, referring to Wadhwa, who either fell or jumped onto Hwy. 401 from the Mavis Rd. overpass, shortly before police located Nijjar’s body. Apparently, officers knew just where to search, following a gravel path deep into weeds and shrubs.
“When she told her parents, they told her to tell the guidance counsellors at school, which she did. Her parents say she also warned police that he might kill himself. Did they look into that? Did that make a report?”
