CANADA • Kiranjit NIJJAR, 17 ~ Mississauga ON

Police find teen girl’s body after boy falls onto Highway 401
September 16, 2011


Police were investigating the scene on the 401 after a 17-year-old boy fell onto the highway Friday.


Police continue their investigation on Spinnaker Circle after the body of a female was found.

A Mississauga teenager updated his Facebook status early Friday morning with a short missive that began by listing the three things he’d learned in his 16 years: “What goes around comes around. Karma is the biggest bitch. You should never change on people who love and care for you.”

“I’m leaving this sad world today,” he wrote, adding it wasn’t worth living any more. Life had let him down too much.

In another update, he listed the 10 people in the world he would miss, their names bracketed by hearts. He ended with his best friend, a girl in his grade who called him her “BFFL” or “best friend for life.”

By 10:30 a.m., he had fallen onto Highway 401 from the Mavis Rd. overpass near his school, Mississauga Secondary.

Police don’t know whether he fell or jumped. He was taken to Sunnybrook hospital with serious injuries.

Two hours later, the body of a teenage girl — identified by nearby students as his best friend — was discovered while police investigated the area near the young man’s fall.

She was found in a wooded ravine in a small park down the street from the school and highway. Police said they would not identify the young woman until they had notified family members. But friends in the area were quick to identify her.

According to a Formspring message board online, the teen’s favourite colour was green and she still watched cartoons on television. Her long hair and smiling face accompanied each message she wrote.

Dozens of police spent Friday afternoon in the park and ravine just off Spinnaker Circle, described by one shocked resident as a quiet family neighbourhood where kids play on the street.

Peel police have yet to determine whether the two incidents, about a kilometre apart, were connected, said Const. Thomas Ruttan.

But rumours flew about the neighbourhood as Mississauga Secondary students trickled out of class Friday afternoon.

Two Grade 11 students said the boy and girl were in Grade 12.

They also said an announcement was made over the public address system at Mississauga Secondary Friday morning, alerting students of an “incident” and cautioning them against speaking with reporters.

Const. George Tudos did not disclose details surrounding the young woman’s death, but called it a homicide.

Coroners and members of the Peel Region homicide team arrived at the crime scene late Friday afternoon to collect evidence.

Teams of officers also went door to door along Spinnaker Circle to question residents.

Groups of Mississauga Secondary students huddled near the taped-off park Friday afternoon.

One group of girls, claiming to know both students, sobbed as others looked on.

Some of them had seen the young man’s message on Facebook.

“IM SO SORRY WORLDD,” was how he ended it.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1055201--police-find-body-of-female-after-boy-falls-on-401?bn=1#article

Body found in Mississauga connected to 401 incident: police
September 16, 2011


Kiranjit Nijjar, 17

A woman found dead in a Mississauga parkette has been identified.

Peel police found the body of Kiranjit Nijjar, 17, on Friday afternoon as they investigated an incident on Highway 401 where a young man fell from an overpass at Mavis Road.

Late on Friday night, Peel police confirmed that the 16-year-old boy will be charged in connection with Nijjar's death.

Nijjar's remains were discovered in a parkette on Spinnaker Circle, near Mavis Road and Highway 401, around 12:30 p.m.

"It was scary. I was shaking. I was in class and there were a couple of girls and when they found out they were shaking too," student Fahad told CityNews.

"Everyone's really sad."

By Friday night, Nijjar's friends and family had created a makeshift memorial at the parkette.

"He laugh was just insane," her cousin Gupi Kler told CityNews.

"She was just a good person to be around. She would bring your spirits up whenever you were down. She was really good. She was my sister," he added.

Fahad said he knew the 16-year-old boy and that he was concerned about recent online messages.

"He pointed out that he was going to suicide or something on Facebook," Fahad said.

The boy survived the fall and is in hospital with severe head injuries. It's not yet known how Nijjar died.

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/154936--body-found-in-mississauga-connected-to-401-incident-police

Charges pending against teen after body found in Mississauga parkette
September 16, 2011


Flowers have been laid at a Mississauga parkette
where the body of a female was found Friday afternoon

The body of a teenage girl was discovered in a wooded section of a Mississauga parkette, Friday.

The body was located by police on Spinnaker Circle, in the Courtneypark Drive West and Mavis Road area shortly after noon.

Police say the body showed obvious signs of trauma and the girl was pronounced dead at the scene. Police say an autopsy to confirm cause of death is expected to be conducted some time in the next couple of days.

The girl has been identified as 17-year-old Kiranjit Nijjar.

Officers were conducting an investigation in the area after a 16-year-old male jumped from an overpass on Mavis Road onto Highway 401. The boy was struck by a vehicle and airlifted to a trauma hospital. He is in serious condition.

Westbound Highway 401 was closed for over four hours from Hurontario Street to Mavis Road while police conducted their investigation.

Shortly after the girl's body was found Constable George Tudos told 680News they were investigating the possibility that the two incidents were related.

"The location of both incidents are very close to each other," said Tudos. "Our investigators are going to be speaking to witnesses and trying to piece everything together to determine if in fact, they are related."

Police set up another scene down the street near a sports facility located next to Mississauga Secondary School.

Students that had gathered in the area told 680News that both the girl and boy attended the school and were best friends.

Police say charges related to the girl's death are pending against the 16-year-old man, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Anyone with information regarding this matter is asked to call Peel Regional Police Communications at (905) 453-3311, or the Homicide and Missing Person’s Bureau, at (905) 453-2121, ext. 3205.

http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/278177--charges-pending-against-teen-after-body-found-in-mississauga-parkette

snipped.....

Police said the body was found in a parkette on Spinnaker Circle, near the Courtneypark Drive West and Mavis Road area, at around 12:30 p.m. Two hours earlier, police were investigating after a 16-year-old boy fell onto the eastbound lanes of Highway 401 from the Mavis Road overpass.

Friends of the boy said he and the victim, both Grade 12 students at Mississauga high schools, were friends.

"He was just really tense about how his life was going on, and his friends left him, and he had problems with this family, and he broke up with his girlfriend and everything," Navjot Mann, the victim's friend, told CTV Toronto.

Mann said the boy confided in the teenage girl.

"They were best friends for a long time. They were always together, always at lunch period, they'd always be together."

Police have not said how the body was discovered, except that they received information that brought them to the heavily wooded area behind the park.

A command post was set up in the area and the park was taped off. Police said a second scene nearby a public washroom was also closed off.

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Peel Police - Homicide Investigators Confirm Murder-Suicide
September 19, 2011

Mississauga – Investigators from the Peel Regional Police Homicide Bureau have confirmed that the lone suspect in the murder of 17 year old Kiranjit NIJJAR has succumbed to his injuries in hospital on Sunday, September 18, 2011. Police cannot identify the suspect as per the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

On Friday, September 16, 2011, at 10:20 a.m., officers responded to a call for service in the area of Highway 401 at Mavis Road where they located the 16 year-old male suspect in the eastbound lanes of the highway suffering from serious injuries.

The subsequent investigation led police to a nearby field where the body of a female was located with obvious signs of trauma. The female, who was pronounced dead at the scene, has been identified as 17 year-old Kiranjit NIJJAR of Mississauga.

Anyone with information regarding this matter is asked to call Peel Regional Police Communications at (905) 453-3311, or the Homicide and Missing Person’s Bureau, at (905) 453-2121, ext. 3205.

Information may also be left anonymously by calling Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or by visiting www.peelcrimestoppers.ca.

http://www.peelpolice.on.ca/News/Media%20Archive.aspx?MainContent=3550

September 20, 2011 - Although they weren't a couple, Akash Wadhwa and Kiran Nijjar were soulmates.

Sadly, as family and friends of the two 17-year-olds learned last Friday, Wadhwa loved her to death.

Best friends since they were six, the two would hang out together at Heartland Town Centre, talk between classes at Mississauga Secondary School, and spend countless hours texting each other, talking on the phone and visiting each other on weekends, according to friends.

On Friday afternoon, though, Wadhwa took their inseparable bond to the extreme, fatally strangling his longtime friend and leaving her body in a ravine near their school, behind Spinnaker Circle. He then walked to the Mavis Rd. overpass down the street and jumped onto Hwy. 401, where he broke both his legs and was hit by an SUV. He died in hospital two days later.


Akash Wadhwa and victim Kiran Nijjar (shown) became friends at the age of six.

Shortly before Wadhwa jumped from the bridge, he posted a chilling message on Facebook: "What goes around comes around. Karma is the biggest bitch. You should never change on people who love and care for you. I'm leaving this sad world today."

Among those he said goodbye to on Facebook was Nijjar, who had called him her "best friend for life."

Peel Regional Police confirmed on Monday that the deaths are being treated as a murder-suicide. Had Wadhwa survived, he would have been charged with murder.

On Tuesday, friends of the two Brampton teens were trying to come to terms with the deaths. Some expressed love and sympathy for both, while others wept for Nijjar, but cursed Wadhwa.

"How could he do this? Why would he do this? It's one thing to take your own life, but to take someone else's who was so precious and beautiful," said a classmate who only wanted to be identified as Daniel. "It's not right. She didn't deserve this."

Other friends were quick to defend Wadhwa, saying he was depressed and troubled.

Many of Wadhwa's good friends contest the rumours, accusations and angry online commenters who know him only as the boy who killed Nijjar and then committed suicide.

"Everyone just wants to think they know his life when it's not really like him," said his best friend of 10 years, who asked not to be named. "People are making him look like a monster."

Those who knew Nijjar and Wadhwa said the pair were friends, but suggested the young man may have tried to take it to "another level" and Nijjar refused.

To outsiders, everything appeared normal, friends say. Many students nicknamed Wadhwa "Preppy" because he always wore gel in his hair.

Nijjar's cousin, Romi Kler, 20, described her as "a free spirit," always laughing, never sad.

"She could brighten everyone's mood. She would never allow an awkward silence around her," Kler said. "That's how I remember her — always smiling and laughing."

Nijjar's immediate family was inconsolable most of the weekend, said other family members who came and went from the Mavis Rd./Steeles Ave. area home.

Kler said "everybody knew" Wadhwa was depressed and suicidal, including Nijjar.

"When she told her parents, they told her to tell the guidance counsellors at school, which she did. Her parents say she also warned police that he might kill himself. Did they look into that? Did that make a report?"

Peel District School Board spokesperson Brian Woodland said the school did "everything that could have been done" to help Wadhwa.

Meanwhile, friends of the teens have set up a Facebook memorial page to organize a candlelight vigil in their memory. It will likely be held on Friday.

On Tuesday, the mood at Mississauga Secondary School remained grim.

"You can tell they're in shock," said Woodland, adding a number of teachers took Monday off, upset by the loss.

Numerous memorial pages have popped up on social media sites while two makeshift memorials, one at the Mavis Rd. overpass and another on Spinnaker Circle, have been erected to honour the teens.

http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/1107305--teen-kills-best-friend-then-himself

Akash Wadhwa, 16, was pronounced dead Sunday evening.
The 16-year-old died two days after falling on to Hwy. 401 from the
Mavis Rd. overpass. The body of his friend Kiranjit Nijjar, 17, was
discovered two hours later in a Mississauga park.

The night that more than 100 people gathered at the site where Kiranjit Nijjar’s body was found Friday, the 16-year-old boy suspected in her death died in hospital.

Peel regional police confirmed Akash Wadhwa had “succumbed to his injuries” on Twitter Sunday evening.

Wadhwa, whose name had been withheld when he was alive because of his age, fell on to Hwy. 401 from the Mavis Rd. overpass two hours before Nijjar’s body was found.

According to Peel police he was likely run over by a car after he hit the road — given the nature of his injuries.

Before the events on Friday, Wadhwa had left a series of messages on Facebook, expressing his disappointment in life.

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Candlelight vigil held for Mississauga teen

The candlelight vigil for Nijjar was held on Friday evening at 8:30 p.m. at a parkette on Spinnaker Circle, near where her body was found. It began with a speech and a moment of silence and included a walk to the high school where there was a guest book to sign, more speeches and a moment of silence to close the evening.

A Facebook event for the girl’s vigil had 437 attendees confirmed by early Friday afternoon.

A separate candlelight vigil for Wadhwa will be held on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at the Highway 401 and Mavis Road overpass, where there will be a speech and a moment of silence for the teen. The vigil will continue to the school where there will be a guest book to sign and another moment of silence.

Singh asked that Facebook users make the posters for the vigils their profile picture until the ceremonies have taken place.

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