Indian youth found murdered in Canada, community members suspect hate crime
Toronto, (PTI): A 23-year-old Indian was found murdered at an apartment in Truro town of Canada's Nova Scotia province, with community members suspecting it a racially- motivated hate crime, according to media reports.
David MacNeil of the Truro Police Service said a 911 call from 494 Robie St at 2 am on Sunday brought officers to the apartment building, where they found a man with life-threatening injuries, CBC Canada reported.
MacNeil confirmed the victim was Prabhjot Singh Katri who later died of his injuries.
Singh worked for Layton's taxi as well as one or two restaurants in Truro.
Police are treating the death as a homicide, the report said.
A man was arrested in connection with the murder but was later released.
"We executed several search warrants on the weekend and we did have a person of interest that was arrested shortly after. However, they have since been released from our custody without charges related to this homicide at this time," MacNeil said.
"That man remains a person of interest," he said.
MacNeil said he met with the victim's family, friends, and members of the local Indian-Canadian community Sunday night to express his condolences.
Singh came to Canada from India in 2017 to study.
"Singh was a hard-working young man with a bright future and this is an absolutely senseless loss of life," MacNeil said. "The community is outraged by this."
A GoFundMe has been set up in an effort to send Singh's body to India, CTV News reported.
Singh's friends are worried that the attack was a racially motivated hate crime, the report said.
Jatinder Kumardeep said Singh was "an innocent guy coming back from his job. He drives a taxi."
Kumardeep said he has not slept since his friend died. Kumardeep said there are few international students in Truro, so most get to know each other. They both come from Punjab, India, and so bonded in Nova Scotia.
"We feel very unsafe," he said.
"We are also people. Brown people also matter. We are giving our everything to this country," he said. "Why is this happening to us?" Agampal Singh said his friend was a good person.
"Nothing was robbed. Even his phone was in his pocket," Singh said. "We don't have any idea why this happened."
His friend had no enemies, he said.
"He was a very innocent guy. Never had bad company, never smoked, never drank, he didn't touch drugs. He had only a few friends here," Agampal said.
"He didn't talk with people he didn't know. I think it might be a hate crime."
"We are coming to this country for a good future," he said. "We are not safe. I can't even sleep."
MacNeil, however, said, "Contrary to social media, we have no information on the motive that we're releasing at this point in time,"
"We don't believe there is any ongoing threat to the public," he added, without offering the reasons behind that assessment.
He did not say if the police think the attack was random, or that the attacker targeted Singh. MacNeil said the investigation was ongoing. The crime scene at the apartment building has been released.
Police did not release the victim's name, nor provide information on any suspects.
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Cong slams govt on rising pollution, demands review of National Ambient Air Quality Standards
New Delhi (PTI): Expressing concern over rising pollution levels, the Congress on Sunday demanded an urgent review and upgradation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 2009, and asserted that they must be enforced as well as monitored more effectively everywhere.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "PM 56-inch has been exposed, PM 2.5 is for real."
Ramesh also said the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) itself needs a laser-like focus on PM2.5.
"PM2.5 that is, particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers or lower measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air as emerged as the cause for a severe environment-public health crisis across the country," the former environment minister said on X.
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A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in December 2024, based on data from 655 districts over 2009-2019, found that every 10 microgram per cubic metre increase in PM2.5 concentration leads to an 8.6% increase in mortality, Ramesh pointed out.
The 2025 Lancet Countdown estimates that about 17.2 lakh Indians die every year from exposure to PM2.5, a 38% increase since 2010, he said.
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has repeatedly told Parliament in 2024, 2025 and again in 2026 that deaths on account of air pollution "cannot be conclusively established", he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Health Ministry's own research body, has endorsed the Lancet findings, attributing 12.4 lakh deaths in 2017 to air pollution, that is 12.5% of all deaths that year, Ramesh said.
Now, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has done a detailed analysis of the data generated by the continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations operated by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), he said, adding that the data covers the period October 1, 2025 to February 2026 for 238 cities.
The conclusions are very disturbing and should be yet another wake-up call to all those who are in denial mode, he said.
Citing the analysis, Ramesh said none of the 238 cities complied with the WHO safe guidelines for PM2.5.
"In 204 of the 238 cities PM2.5 concentrations were above the levels set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) that were promulgated way back in November 2009. Subsequently, the WHO announced its updated safe guideline in September 2021," Ramesh said.
The Indian standard for the annual average concentration of PM2.5 is now 8 times weaker than the WHO guideline, he said.
The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) launched in 2019 has made very little impact on PM2.5 concentrations, he claimed.
PM2.5 concentrations complied with the NAAQS, 2009 safe level only in 12 of the 96 NCAP cities, Ramesh pointed out.
"Over Rs 13,400 crore has been released under NCAP and XV Finance Commission grants since inception, with 68% spent on road dust management.The NCAP benchmarks itself against PM10, the coarser and less lethal pollutant, not PM2.5," he said.
While the top polluted cities are in the National Capital Region covering Delhi and parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, other states like Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have a very high proportion of polluted cities that exceed the standards, Ramesh said.
There are 50 cities where continuous data availability is less than 80%, while there are some monitoring stations where no data was available for even a single day, Ramesh said.
"The National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 2009 need urgent review and upgradation. They also must be enforced and monitored more effectively everywhere. In addition, the NCAP itself needs a laser-like focus on PM2.5," the Congress leader asserted.
