The r/Kitchener subreddit exploded with discussion after screenshots with a warning from a concerned mother made their way onto the board. The screenshots, taken from a private community on Facebook for parents in the area, raised the alarm over a childless South Asian man who had been staring children in a local park.
“Our family has had numerous run-ins recently in our area,” begins the post, made by Kris Alexandra, a mother who lives in Kitchener. “From our 10-year-old daughter and her best friend being nearly abducted at gun and knife point a couple weeks ago by 3 men in a van, on their way home from [Groh Park]. To last night, my husband and I were AT the park with the girls, and this man was at the park staring at their bodies and being within reach for nearly 20 minutes while the girls played on the monkey bars.”
The mother explains that the two girls had asked the man to stop staring at them, but the man, refusing to move, told the children he could “stare if he wanted to.” Upon being alerted to what was happening, the woman and her husband stepped in to protect the kids and record the exchange.
According to the post, originally shared on the Doon Nighthawks Facebook group, the man was at the park with a woman who could barely speak English and appeared to have an injury – but neither one of them had children in tow. The Facebook group, which is private, was created to monitor suspicious activity in the Doon neighborhood of South Kitchener, and locals often post warnings or concerns to alert other residents.
In addition to noting that other families in the park retreated during the confrontation, the woman explained in her post that because the police “took forever to show up,” her husband followed the suspect home and took note of his address.
“[The police] seemed like they took it seriously,” she continued, adding that they advised her that there was not much they could do other than ask him to “stop watching children at the park” because he didn’t have a known criminal record.
“The girls said that he has stared at their bodies many times when they frequent this park, which I was not aware of until now. They said he is there every single time they go to that park.”
Sharing a photo of the man in question, the woman concludes the post by expressing how frustrated she is that this happened in an affluent neighborhood.
“I am LIVID and, I have so much more to say, but I will refrain. This is not how I grew up, and this is NOT what I expected from my [million-dollar] neighborhood.”
The post received over 400 comments on the r/Kitchener subreddit, with some accusing the woman of “racism” for her post.
“Racists got rockhard seeing this post,” one user wrote, with another adding: “This entire town reeks or racism. I bet they were there first and she was being a b*tch so they told her to f*ck off they are not moving. And the b*tch posts this… like this doesn’t happen every f*cking day.”
Some users accused the mother of fabricating the story, while others still claimed she had photoshopped the pictures to stir up hatred against Indian men.
But while there were a few detractors, most users chimed in to express their growing frustration with Canada’s increasingly lax immigration policies.
“That moment when you knew exactly who the suspect was even before seeing the photo,” wrote one subreddit member.
“As a Canadian born kid from my Indian immigrant parents. I can tell you all we all hate them with extreme passion more than any other people. The government has let us down, and [this] intense immigration is horrible with this new generation not understanding how to properly respect and adjust to Canadian culture,” added another user. His comments were quickly lambasted by other users claiming to be Indian, who accused him of having “internalized racism.”
Others pointed to the growing trend of South Asian immigrants preying on women and children in Ontario, including a man living in Vaughan who is currently facing several charges for luring a 12-year-old to have sex.
According to City News, 20-year-old Shubham Sahota began communicating with the child on social media, posing as a 16-year-old. In addition to sending the child sexually explicit photos, Sahota reportedly sent a rideshare to bring the victim to his house to engage in sexual activities.
But Sahota is just one of dozens of South Asian migrants who have made the news for sexual assault in Ontario in recent weeks.
Another, Janarthan Sivaranjan, was arrested for sexually assaulting multiple underage girls in Newmarket. Disturbingly, residents of the area say Sivaranjan was known to lurk outside of the local high school and leer at minors prior to his arrest.
