INSIDE: City staff: transit money best spent locally, not regionally Pg. 3 F R I D A Y
January 14, 2011
4 N E W S ,
SPORTS,
WEATHER
&
100+ baby chicks killed in heist
E N T E R T A I N M E N T abbotsfordtimes.com
Fourth suspect in kidnap case Police won’t say if ‘victim’ is now under investigation
ROCHELLE BAKER RBaker@abbotsfordtimes.com
A
bbotsford police are investigating a fourth suspect following the convoluted kidnapping of a mom and two teenage males in Abbotsford last Friday. The APD announced Monday that three suspects were no longer in custody after the evidence against them was deemed too circumstantial to proceed with charges. The trio, who were arrested in a white Acura Integra on Highway 1 shortly after the kidnapping, had
previous negative contacts with law enforcement and are still under investigation, according to police. However, the Abbotsford-Mission Times has learned a fourth suspect also had charges dropped against him. Jimi Sandhu, 21, Balwinder Narang, 20, Daniel Bajaj and Rajan Sharma, both aged 19, all had two counts of kidnapping and kidnapping with a firearm stayed against them on Monday in Abbotsford provincial court.
First reported @
abbotsfordtimes.com Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald would not confirm whether one of the four suspects was one of the 19-year-old victims of the kidnapping. Police are not releasing the names of any of the parties involved, said MacDonald. “But this is still an active investigation and two aspects of the incident are very particular,” he said.
“Those incidents are why did the two boys elect to walk down a path after 1 a.m. in the morning, and why did the suspects apparently abort their plan and abandon the abducted on the busiest roadway in B.C.?” The abduction incident started around 1:30 a.m. last Friday when two 19-year-old men were heading home after a movie. One victim was driving the family car, a black two-door Infiniti G37, on the way to his friend’s house in west
Abbotsford when the pair stopped and entered a path near a green belt off of Homestead Crescent. Masked and armed suspects confronted the pair on the path and forced them back to the Infiniti and to drive to one of the victim’s home in the 500 block of McCallum Road. A 44-year-old woman, the mother of one of the victims, was at home when the suspects forced their way into the house. They bound her, her other 17year-old son and a 70-year-old see SUSPECT, page A12
Rain washes winter wallop Wet weather & warmer temperatures forecasted CAM TUCKER camtuckertimes@gmail.com
T
he cold snap and two sizable snowfalls that leveled Abbotsford and Mission this week have given way to milder temperatures and heavy rain, with plenty more on the way. Environment Canada is forecasting temperatures between six and “I think the general 10 degrees Celsius for at sense of the roads least the next five days, with nothing but rain in Abbotsford were over that span as milder air from the Pacific still troublesome Ocean hits the region for a lot of folks.” and replaces the colder, arctic air that funneled into the Fraser Valley – Dave Stephen late last week. The warmer temperatures and continuing rain should wash away any of the remaining 20 centimetres of snow that fell Tuesday night and Wednesday morning on top
– JEAN KONDA-WITTE/TIMES
It was all fun and games for Abbotsford and Mission students who enjoyed a snow day off from school Wednesday, after 20 centimetres of the white stuff fell Tuesday night. The hills at Rotary Stadium were the hot spot in town for the young and young at heart. For more photos from the recent snowfall see our special gallery at www.abbotsfordtimes.com.
Independent Financial Services 201-2190 West Railway Sreet, Abbotsford, BC V2S 2E2
see WEATHER, page A7
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