BY RATTAN MALL
LAST October, I exclusively reported that Surrey RCMP confirmed to me that there had been two shootings within an hour on the night of October 15 and that sources had told me that the two were related and were between Pakistani-Canadian and Indo-Canadian groups.
(Interestingly, Surrey RCMP Chief Superintendent Bill Fordy on Thursday revealed that four of the five males he named as being allegedly involved in four related shootings in Surrey on Tuesday and Wednesday – Pardip Brar, 20, of Delta, Indervir Johal, 21, of Surrey, Amrit Kular, 20, of Surrey and Pardeep Singh, 20, of Surrey – were in one group, Sameh Mohammed, 20, of Surrey was in the rival group. All five are known to police.)
The first shooting that I reported last October was at 121 Street and 82 Avenue where a house was shot at. There were people in the house but no one was injured though there was a broken window, Staff-Sgt. Joe Johal told me just hours after the that incident.
He said it was possibly a drive-by shooting as there was a report of a small greenish or grayish hatchback SUV taking off from the scene. The residents were South Asians.
Cpl. Bert Paquet told me later that one of the residents of the targeted house confessed to police investigators that he had been involved in criminal activities in the recent past.
Paquet added: “But he stated he was no longer involved in any kind of criminal activities at this point, but we are still obviously investigating.”
Paquet confirmed the second shooting the next week when I contacted him about it after sources revealed it to me. He told me that about 50 minutes before the second shooting, there was a shooting around 7:30 p.m. in the 5800-block of 126A Street. Witnesses reported a vehicle sped away from that area after what they said were between eight and 10 shots being fired. Police couldn’t confirm the exact number of shots that were fired, but they recovered some shell casings at the scene.
Paquet added: “We found an unoccupied vehicle parked in the driveway near that location with several bullet holes in it. There was no one in the vehicle when it was fired upon.”
Police did some canvassing of the neighbourhood looking for surveillance video.
Police at that time had not identified people responsible for the shots. One of the witnesses described the vehicle that sped away right after the shooting as a possibly newer model silver Toyota car. But there was no description of the driver or the passengers or any information about the number of occupants.
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