By Surbhi Bhatia

Moms who were involved in a four-women brawl outside North Ridge Elementary last Friday may not be allowed to enter the school’s premises to pick up their kids. They will have to authorize some other family member to go to school on their behalf, according to Surrey School Board.

Doug Strachan, communication service manager, Surrey Schools, while expressing his concern about the four women fight that took place in front of more than 100 kids, said, “Violence of any kind is not accepted in our schools. However, this was a private matter, the Surrey school board has limitations as to the action it can take. It will be up to the principal to take the action. In such extreme cases generally the persons involved are restricted to enter the school’s premises.”

Ben Gill, a parent and vice-president of the school’s parent advisory committee, who was one of the witnesses to the fight, confirmed that the principal of the school has banned the women to enter the school for a limited time. “I called up the principal and she just informed me that the women have been banned to come to the school.”

Earlier two women, out of the three involved in the fight also faced assault charges.

“Sonia Khan, 33, and Saiqa Khan, 39, facing assault charges for beating up one women that happened during the school’s sports day. A third woman involved in the spat was not charged. The charges have been laid, the court will do the proceedings,” informed a spokesperson from the Surrey RCMP.

Both of the women charged are believed to be from the same family, though the officer said police hadn’t determined how they are related. They were arrested and released on Friday under certain conditions. “Part of their release includes conditions to have no contact with the victim,” said the spokesperson.

The fight occurred in front of 100 to 150 people. Gill said three women kicked another woman on the ground around 1 p.m., after a gruesome round of hair-pulling and cursing.”It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen since I moved to Surrey,” said Gill, who has two kids in Grades 5 and 7. “I saw clumps of hair and a little bit of blood on the road.”

Gill showed up just after the brawl was broken up and saw the woman’s bloodied face as she lay on the ground.

The 32-year-old victim was taken to hospital via ambulance with minor head and facial injuries and was released the same day.

While it’s still unclear how the fight started, it reportedly stems from a traffic incident in June 2012

“The worst part about it, other than my kids and other kids witnessing it – because it was done all in front of the primary school kids – was that going up to the women, trying to calm them down, the first thing that came out of her mouth was, ‘She started it,'” he said.

BC trucker Navdeep Singh Dhillon has been ruled guilty and has been convicted of importing 30 kilograms of cocaine into Canada in his tractor-trailer.

Dhillon was found guilty last month of importing a controlled substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision released Wednesday.

On April 17, 2009, Dhillon was returning from a trip to California and drove his tractor-trailer unit to the Pacific Highway border crossing, stopping at a primary inspection booth.

He was asked a number of questions by a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer and referred for a secondary inspection.

The trailer, which contained a shipment of almonds, was examined by two officers and a detector dog. They found 30 brick-like packages behind two access panels in the trailer’s refrigeration compartment.

The packages each weighed about one kilogram and contained cocaine. The total value of the drugs was approximately $1.5 million.

Also found in the tractor unit were driver’s logs, receipts and a socket set, tools and hardware that matched the fasteners and other hardware used on the refrigeration access panels.

The refrigeration unit had been inspected previously by the CBSA in July 2006, November 2008 and February 2009. The secret compartment in the refrigeration unit had been noted during these inspections. Dhillon drove the tractor-trailer unit during the November 2008 and February 2009 inspections.

The day of Dhillon’s arrest, police used his cellphone to track down another person believed to have been involved in the smuggling operation.

Crown alleged that Dhillon drove over the border in an empty rig, picked up the man in the U.S., loaded the drugs, retrieved his load of almonds, dropped off the man in the U.S. and then returned to Canada. His passenger took a bus back and forth over the border and was waiting for Dhillon and the drugs in Surrey.

The defence emphasized that the Crown’s case was circumstantial and argued that Dhillon was a “blind courier” who knew nothing about the drugs in his cargo.

Justice Murray Blok did not accept that Dhillon had no idea what was hidden in the trailer.

The Crown is seeking four-year jail terms for two co-accused of high-profile gangster Sukhveer Dhak, who was shot to deathwhile they were in the middle of their drug conspiracy trial.

Baljit Singh Pabla and James Neville Rankin were charged along with Dhak after police busted an ecstasy pill operation at a Vancouver home in March 2008.

Court heard that Dhak was the operating mind of the ecstasy factory, with police seizing a pill press, more than 18,000 ecstasy tablets and enough materials to make another 93,000 tablets.

The drugs seized were worth $1.1 million and there was a potential to have produced drugs worth millions of more dollars, said the Crown.

Pabla and Rankin were workers in the drug enterprise.

The trial of the three men began in October last year and was adjourned a month later after Dhak and his bodyguard, Thomas Mantel, were gunned down at a Burnaby hotel.

After the trial resumed, B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Gail Dickson found the two Dhak associates guilty of conspiracy to produce ecstasy and production of ecstasy.

At a sentencing hearing last Friday, a lawyer for Rankin requested and was granted an adjournment for Rankin’s sentencing in order to have a pre-sentence report prepared.

Crown counsel Sharon Steele, proceeding with sentencing submissions for Pabla, began her remarks by saying that she would be asking for four-year jail terms for both men.

She noted that while Pabla was not the “controlling mind” of the operation, he had keys to the residence, frequently attended the home and played a “significant” role in the ecstasy factory.
“The motive for this crime was greed,” she told the judge. “The whole point of the enterprise was to make money.”

Mark Jette, Pabla’s lawyer, said his client’s youth was a significant factor on sentencing, noting that Pabla was not quite 20 years old at the time of the offence.

The defence lawyer, who is seeking a conditional sentence for Pabla, argued that his client was just a worker, a key factor in assessing his moral culpability.

The mastermind was Pabla’s cousin Sukh Dhak and there was a decent probability that Dhak’s brother, Gurmit Dhak, was also involved in the drug operation, he said.

“They would appear to have been upper management level and Mr. Pabla was one of the workers.”

Pabla was naive and impressionable, with personality characteristics that could be described as submissive and compliant, said Jette.
“To put it in the simplest terms, he was dominated by the alpha males in his extended family.”

Gurmit Dhak, Sukh Dhak’s older brother, was gunned down at Metrotown shopping centre in October 2010.

In September 2011, following a number of gang-related shootings, the gang task force issued an extraordinary public warning that anyone around Sukh Dhak or his associates in the Dhure group and the UN gang could be at risk.

A Vancouver teacher who duct taped some of her students’ mouths for talking in class has been reprimanded by the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch.

Margo Fowler, a math teacher at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School, punished two Grade 8 students and one Grade 10 student on separate occasions by taping their mouths, according to a 2012 report to the branch from Vancouver School District 39.

One of the Grade 8 students was given a choice of whether he’d prefer to go to the principal’s office or have his mouth duct taped. He chose the latter and sat with his mouth taped for 15 to 20 minutes, according to the decision posted on the regulation branch’s website. One of the student’s friends then posted a photograph of the incident on Facebook.

In April, Fowler admitted to duct taping the mouths of the three students, and has been reprimanded by the branch for professional misconduct.

On the website RateMyTeachers.com, Fowler is rated four out of five stars based on the easiness, helpfulness and clarity of her teaching practices. Students appear to like the entertaining, easy-going teacher.

“She is the best math teacher I have ever had,” writes one student, adding that Fowler is humorous in class and keeps the students laughing.

Another stated that Fowler is “Just. Plain. Awesome.”

Surrey Mounties say they’ve received dozens of guns in the first two weeks of the month-long B.C. Gun Amnesty program.

Among the weapons, RCMP officers have collected 38 rifles, 19 shotguns, four handguns, 10 pellet guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. The collection is part of a provincial program that aims to keep communities safe by collecting firearms.

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Bert Paquet said a number of historic rifles, possibly relics from previous military operations, have been turned in as well as materials used in the making of homemade ammunition.

“Many times we will receive guns and firearms from families whose previous generations have passed on and they no longer want them in their homes,” he said, in statement Wednesday.

People with unwanted firearms are encouraged to turn them in by calling the Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 to arrange for a police officer to pick them up.

For safety reasons, people are asked not to deliver weapons to any detachment.