INDO-CANADIAN GANG WAR ERUPTS AGAIN

Vancouver police are investigating yet another gangland slaying after
31-year-old Robbie Kandola died in a hail of gunfire early Sunday morning
outside his swank downtown apartment building.

Kandola, who is well-known to police after years of association with some
of Vancouver's most notorious Indo-Canadian gang leaders, was killed as he
stepped out of a cab in the 1500-block of West Pender.

"It has all the earmarks of a gang-style execution," said Vancouver Police
Detective Scott Driemel.

A series of Lower Mainland murders linked to Indo-Canadian gangs has
claimed 13 young men in the past year and an estimated 50 over the last decade.

Kandola was returning to his apartment in a Black Top taxi just after 4
a.m. Sunday when a dark SUV pulled up and fired more than 30 bullets,
smashing windows, littering the sidewalk with debris and waking panicked
neighbours.

Driemel said Kandola was hit several times and died on the street where he
was shot.

Police arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting and cordoned off the
area. By mid-morning, yellow police tape still surrounded the corner of
Nicola and Pender, and dozens of little yellow markers lay on the street
and sidewalk marking shell casings.

The taxi sat with its back passenger door wide open, the back window shot
out. Next to the cab, a mailbox was riddled with bullet holes.

Driemel said police are interviewing a number of people, including a female
acquaintance of Kandola's who was in the cab when the shooting took place.
Neither the woman nor the cab driver were injured in the shooting.

While Driemel said the shooting appeared pre-meditated, he said police are
not sure what the motive was.

Kandola had a long history with the Vancouver police, Driemel said.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that Kandola was an associate of accused
cocaine trafficker Ranjit Singh Cheema until Cheema was shot at a Richmond
karaoke club in 1995. Kandola was with Cheema in the club shortly before
the gunman struck in the parking lot.

After the two had a falling out, Kandola was thought to have information
about the murder of Mike Brar, a bodyguard of Cheema's gunned down at a
Vancouver wedding in May, 2000.

A cousin of Kandola's was the last person to see Brar alive.

Cheema was a former associate of Bindy Johal, the notorious gangster gunned
down on a Vancouver dance floor in December, 1998.

Another close associate of Kandola's was John Rodgers, who was murdered at
a gas station at West 67th and Oak in May, 2001, in a hit police believe
was carried out in retaliation for the murder of a member of the Hells Angels.

Kandola was charged with attempted murder at the age of 18 in connection
with the shooting of a Red Eagles gang member. He was later acquitted by a
jury.

Driemel said that the first 48 hours after a murder are critical for
investigators. Police are hoping someone will step forward with information
about Kandola's whereabouts in the hours before the shooting.

The gangland hit comes just a week after Indo-Canadian religious, community
and political leaders attended a forum about gang violence in the
Indo-Canadian community.

There have been more than 50 young Indo-Canadians killed in recent years.
Kandola's shooting is not believed to be linked to a series of slayings
since last fall in Surrey, Delta and Richmond, which are believed to be
related to each other. That string of violence includes the September
murder of Kam Jawanda, the October killing of Rick Bhatti and the April
murder of Gary Sidhu, as well as the disappearance of Ned Mander. All the
victims knew each other.

Another series of shootings and murders involved Richmond's Buttar brothers
and their associates. Bal Buttar was paralyzed in a south Vancouver
shooting last August that his associate Gary Rai did not survive. Buttar's
brother Kelly was murdered in Richmond in December. Other associates, like
Tyler Hawerluk, have also shown up dead in the last year.

Kandola was considered a more hardened criminal than some of the young
Indo-Canadians involved in gangs, associating with big players in the
cocaine trade.

Since the forum, there have been several shootings involving young
Indo-Canadians, in addition to Sunday's murder.

Indo-Canadian leaders lamented the fact that the violence is continuing so
intensely despite the concerns and fears of the community.

Social worker Gurnam Singh Sanghera, who attended last week's forum, said
the police have got to do more to solve the crimes, especially when so many
murders have not resulted in arrests.

"A forum cannot resolve everything," Sanghera said. "Police have to take
ownership. Whoever is responsible has got to be charged. We are prepared to
cooperate in a general sense, but the police have to find out where the
guns are coming from."

Rupinder Hayer, editor of the Indo-Canadian Times, blamed parents in her
community for turning a blind eye to the problem.

"They do not talk about this openly," said Hayer, whose father was gunned
down in 1998 in a still unsolved slaying.

"The parents never own up. They never say our kids have gone this way
because they feel ashamed."

Hayer said the families have to recognize that the violence is a societal
problem that will not be solved until people talk openly about it,
preventing youth from getting caught up in it.

Meanwhile, outside Kandola's apartment, the sidewalk had become a memorial
site by Sunday afternoon.

Mourners come in waves. Two young women, arms full of red, white and pink
roses, sunflowers and lilies, were stained with tears. They huddled
together after putting the bouquets down one by one. Three candles were
pushed together amidst the floral arrangements, but the flames have already
been blown out by the wind.

Several bouquets, tied to a spindly tree, had already begun to wilt in the
summer heat. Cards poked out from the baby's breath: "Always in our hearts"
and "Missed but not forgotten" carefully penned in blue ink.