International student killed by stray bullet in Hamilton 'was a child', uncle says at vigil

Dozens gathered in Hamilton on Sunday afternoon to honour Harsimrat Randhawa, a 21-year-old international student who was killed by a stray bullet while waiting for a bus just days earlier.

Her family, joined by members of the community, held back tears as they prayed and remembered a young woman they say came to Canada in search of a "better future".

"I picked her up from the airport," said her uncle, Manbir Sandhu. "She was a child. She still looks like a child to me."

Randhawa arrived in Canada two years ago, Sandhu said, from India to study at Mohawk College.

"She wanted to be so many things," he said.

Randhawa was struck in the chest by a stray bullet near Upper James Street and South Bend Road. Hamilton police say the shots were fired from a black Mercedes SUV targeting another vehicle. The shots also hit two homes nearby, but no one inside those homes was injured.

Police say she was not the target — simply an innocent bystander caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"[This] is not acceptable," said Sandhu about gun violence in the city. "We all, as a community, need to stand up and make sure it doesn't happen again."

"If this isn't safe, where are we supposed to go?"

Randhawa was going into her second year studying occupational physiotherapy, Mohawk's president said.

Sandhu said when she wasn't in school, she loved to cook and play with her young cousin.

Her family says she often visited them on long weekends. This past weekend, they were planning to drive from Kitchener, Ont. to pick her up. Instead, they are now preparing to send her body home to India.

Her family back home, Sandhu said, "haven't accepted" what happened yet.

"They haven't seen her, they need to see her to know that she's really gone," he said.

"No parent should see that."

Students who didn't even know Randhawa personally expressed their grief at the vigil.

"It's just so sad," said Daniela Fernandez Llamas, another international student at Mohawk. "She was just waiting here to go to work, and now she's gone."

Mohawk College's president, Paul Armstrong, also spoke at the event, acknowledging the pain rippling through the campus community.

"It's almost an unbelievable feeling," Armstrong said. "Her faculty, her students, her fellow community members are just shocked and upset and in some ways, worried for their own safety."

'These guns have to go': Hamilton mayor

Hamilton mayor Andrea Horwath addressed the crowd, calling for stronger measures to curb gun violence.

"These guns have to go," she said. "We cannot have this kind of violence in our city, in our community. Look at all the people here — they're saying the same thing."

She told reporters Randhawa's killing was "shocking," and "unacceptable."

"My heart is broken for her, for her family, for the entire school community ... it's horrifying."

Horwath said community members are worried about safety in the city following this incident.

"Who should be worried, standing at a bus stop, that they're gonna lose their lives?" she said.

Randhawa's uncle says he hopes her death will lead to change.

"She's not going to come back, no matter what we say or do," he said. "But we need to take some action so it doesn't happen again."

As of Monday morning, Hamilton police said there is nothing new to share about the case. They continue to investigate and are urging anyone with information to come forward.