International students from Seneca College gathered in Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday to mourn the death of Kartik Vasudev, who was shot dead at Toronto’s Sherbourne subway station on Thursday.
“I hope each and everyone remembers him as a hardworking, ambitious and aspiring international student who was just going (to) his work,” Ritik Sharma, of the Seneca Student Federation, told Global News.
Sharma was one of many international students standing in front of Toronto City Hall. They held banners and conducted a vigil in honour of their deceased peer.
According to police, the shooting happened just after 5 p.m. on Thursday, outside of Sherbourne subway station.
Speaking at a press conference Thursday, Toronto police Insp. Richard Harris said before officers arrived on the scene, an off-duty paramedic delivered first aid to the victim.
Harris said Vasudev suffered “several gunshot wounds,” and was transported to hospital in critical condition, where he was later pronounced deceased.
“We are collapsed actually, we don’t know what to say,” Jitesh Vasudev, Kartik’s father, told Global News in a virtual interview. “He was the child every parent wants, the best child.”
A crowdfunding campaign to support the family has raised more than $28,000 as of Sunday afternoon.
Several students said the incident had shaken their views of Canada as a safe country where they might build a new life.
“I came to Canada for a reason. I came here for safety,” Sumegha Sobti, an international student at Seneca College, said. “Every single day we go out for our jobs and I don’t know if I am safe anymore. I am scared to go to (the) subway…my parents are scared to death about it, they read every single day about these incidents happening.”
On Friday, Gaurav Vasdev identified his cousin, Kartik Vasudev, was the man shot and killed at the Sherbourne subway station in Toronto. According to Vasdev, his cousin was a 21-year-old first-year marketing student studying at Seneca College.
“We always thought that Canada was such a safe country, that nothing could happen to Kartik there” Vasdev said. “It’s just unbelievable what has happened and you know, like I said, we don’t even know what to do right now. ”
David Agnew, the president of Seneca College, said the shooting was senseless.
“He was hardworking, bright, full of ambition and energy and enthusiasm for making a new life in Canada and then (he was) cut down completely randomly on a Thursday afternoon going to his workplace,” he said. “This makes no sense. So I think every international student feels that.”
— With files from Global News’ Brittany Rosen, Hannah Jackson and Morganne Campbell