Friends, family mourn pillars of Bangladeshi community in Vancouver as impaired driving charges laid
Suranjan and Suparna Das died in a car crash in Vernon, B.C., last year while on vacation
Shawan Das' children will never fully understand their Bengali heritage and language. Her son was only a year old when he lost both his grandparents last year.
Shawan's sister, Sharmistha Das, still remembers Aug. 5, 2022, like it was yesterday. She, her husband and the kids had gone to Comox for a fishing trip. It was 27 degrees out, sunny, dry and gorgeous.
The kids were laughing in the car. Aren't we so lucky that we have everything? Sharmistha had said to her husband.
That was moments before she got the call that her parents, Suranjan, 71, and Suparna Das, 65, had died in a head-on collision on Highway 97 while on vacation in Vernon, B.C.
"They didn't take any leisurely trips. And, the first time that they do, this is how they're killed," said Shawan.
Nearly one year later, on August 3, 2023, Crown counsel has approved six charges against 36-year-old Vernon resident Michael Rodine.
The charges include two counts of criminal negligence causing death, two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of impaired driving over .08 causing death.
The couple leaves behind four children and four grandchildren. But they also leave behind a community of Bengali immigrants they helped build in the Vancouver area and that had grown to see them as leaders, friends and ultimately, family.
"It's affected the community as a whole," said Shawan. "And it just goes to show what grand human beings they were. But our day-to-day, our minute-by-minute, it's endless suffering for us. We're just trying to do our best to push forward and carry on their legacy and live the lives that they helped us build."
But she says the slow-moving pace of justice isn't doing much to help fill the holes their absence has left.
"The Bangladeshi diaspora, we're a small community. My parents were probably the first of that few [of the] Bangladeshi diaspora several decades ago that started here in B.C. They're the first of the people here. And it's invaluable the impact that they have had on us and what they would have had on our children that will never be realized because of the way they were taken."
Freedom fighter in war of independence
Hafizur Jahangir, a longtime family friend, said he was initially drawn to the Das's when he learned the father, Suranjan, was a mukti joddha (or 'freedom fighter') in the 1971 war of independence for Bangladesh. To many Bengalis, this is the "most respectable honour," he said.
Jahangir describes the Das's as the most giving people he's met. He described how, when he first arrived in Canada in 1996, he had no idea how to file his taxes.
"[Suranjan] said 'No problem! I'll take you … At that time, I didn't have a car. He took me from my home to his lawyer's office."
And that's who Suranjan was, says Jahangir. He helped newcomers settle into Canada, helped them make connections with other Bangladeshis in the city, and helped them form a community away from home.
"We lost a big supporter, a rock," said Jahangir. "Any problem, there was Suranjan. There is no more Suranjan. That is a big loss."
John Joseph, Suparna's manager at Vancouver International Airport where she worked as a screener for over 25 years, says she is missed.
Suparna was "a friend to everyone at work. Work was family to her."
He says she never missed a day. On one occasion, Joseph says he asked Suparna about retirement.
"She said, 'You know what? This probably will be my last year. After this year, I will retire. I want to spend a lot of time with my grandkids,'" he recalled. "That's when we heard the tragic news of the accident and of her passing away."
"We always refer to her [at work] even to this day. She leaves behind a big legacy."
Rodine's first court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 7, 2023.
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