India to Canada – a father’s long road to justice for youth killed in ‘random attack’

Ghaziabad: Jitesh Vasudev has been to Canada twice in the past 19 months.The first time, he had gone to bring his son Kartik’s body home after the 21-year-old was shot dead at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto in April last year. On his second visit to Canada, Jitesh and his wife saw their son’s killer for the first time.“We were filled with a deep sense of aversion towards him. But my wife and I decided to keep our sanity intact. We had to fight for his justice — it was going to be a long one,” recollects Jitesh at his Rajendra Nagar home.He has come a long way since then. On September 9, a court in Toronto concluded the preliminary hearing into the murder of Kartik Vasudev. His shooter — 39-year-old Richard Jonathan Edwin — was charged with first-degree murder.“In the last week of November, we came to know that a 12-member jury has been constituted. It is expected to pronounce the quantum of punishment in the last week of September next year,” says Jitesh, a manager with British Telecom.Kartik, who was pursuing a marketing management course in Seneca College of Toronto, was on his way to work when Richard accosted him outside Sherbourne station and shot him multiple times. Canadian media reported that an off-duty paramedic had initially tried to treat Kartik, but he succumbed to injuries at St Michael’s Hospital.Jitesh and his wife Pooja woke up to the news the next morning, when Kartik’s cousin called them up from Toronto. The external affairs ministry facilitated their visas to go to Canada a few days later.“Since then, we have been to Toronto twice. The first time, we had to complete the formalities and bring the body back. We went again when the trials began,” Jitesh tells TOI.TV, internet or newspaper reports, Jitesh has since been keeping track of every bit of information related to his son. The couple have been relentlessly following every legal aspect of the case.“We regularly hold Zoom meetings with Kartik’s cousin who lives in Toronto. She shares with us whatever information she can source from police and other agencies there. After more than 19 months, we are somewhere close to seeing justice being delivered to our elder son. His shooter has been convicted of first-degree murder. We are waiting for the quantum of punishment,” says Jitesh.They vividly remember the killer’s face. “We saw him first when the trials began. We just wanted to ask him, ‘why did you kill my son’? We want exemplary punishment for him,” he says.According to Canadian police, Richard did not know Kartik and carried out a “random attack”. “I can’t say if it was a hate crime, but the attack on my son was definitely unprovoked. The Canadian police and media have been very cooperative throughout. I am sure my son will get justice,” Jitesh says.For Nidhi Vaid — Kartik’s cousin in Toronto — that April day when she broke the news of his death to his parents was the cruellest. “They couldn’t believe me for the first few minutes. But when they realised I was speaking the truth, all hell broke loose on them,” says Nidhi. Kartik’s friends in college, Nidhi says, remember him as a “bright, friendly and nice young man”. “He had come to Toronto just a few months before his murder. He had also taken up a part-time job to fund his daily life,” Nidhi tells TOI.At his Rajendra Nagar home, Kartik has left behind a bouquet of memories. Jitesh’s WhatsApp profile picture is a smiling photo of Kartik, captioned ‘keep smiling wherever you are’.
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