In Canada, an Indian-origin student named Tejeshwar Kalia working as a clerk at a store has been booked with charges carrying a 14-year jail term for hitting a robber with a baseball bat in self-defence. The incident took place on 5th January this year at the Circle K convenience store on King Street in Peterborough.
In a shocking turn of events, the robber identified as Jonathan Handel, a Fentanyl addict who struck Tejeshwar repeatedly got the punishment of a mere 14 months in provincial jail on Thursday (4th April), while the 22-year-old student attending Sir Sanford Fleming College, who hit the robber in self-defence, remains before the courts facing up to 14 years in a federal prison.
A video of the incident has surfaced online, revealing that the incident occurred at 2:30 a.m. on the 5th of January, with the robber entering the store with a baseball bat hidden in a blue bag. Once at the counter, the video shows him pulling the bat from the bag and repeatedly striking Kalia in the back of the head.
Subsequently, a struggle for control of the bat follows. Kalia, another unknown client in the store, and Jonathan Handel get caught up in a physical scuffle before coming outside. The two men overpower the robber, and Kalia hits him with the baseball bat. The robber falls to the ground, Tejeshwar Kalia sits down with visible emotional stress, while the other man checks on the robber.
EXCLUSIVE—This video tells a more complete story of what happened at the Circle K in Peterborough Jan. 5. It shows original baseball bat attack/robbery on Tejeshwar Kalia that Jonathan Handel plead guilty to, the struggle over the bat and Kalia’s quick response in self defence pic.twitter.com/quNQlMxXkE
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) April 5, 2024
Reports say that the police in a press release on 9th January said that a “man came into the store demanding money and brandishing a baseball bat. A struggle ensued and the clerk was struck with the bat before grabbing the bat away from the suspect. The suspect then fled the store. The clerk followed the suspect out of the store and struck him several times with the baseball bat on the sidewalk.”
However, CCTV footage shows that the suspect did not exit the store freely, but rather engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Kalia and a customer for control of the bat, which later moved out into the street. Contrary to the Police’s initial claims, Kalia did not follow him with the bat but instead took it away from the attacker outside the store and hit Handel twice.
The robber who attacked Tejeshwar Kalia gets 14 months jail term, Kalia gets 14 years sentence for self-defence
Notably, Jonathan Handel was sentenced on Thursday to 18 months in jail on a guilty plea to the heist, which was lowered to 14 months with time served at a 1.5-day reduction, giving him 425 days left to serve out of the original sentence of 545 days. Kalia, meanwhile, has received no relief despite being the victim rather than the perpetrator.
Speaking to Toronto Sun, Kalia said, “I saw it as me defending myself. I was afraid for my life.
During the court hearing on Thursday, in a victim impact statement read in court by a friend, Kalia stated that the baseball bat shots put him in panic mode at the time and have subsequently left him “grappling with physical and emotional stress.”
“I fell victim to a brutal robbery (in which) the assailant, wielding a baseball bat, viciously struck me three times: twice on the back of my head and once on my spine,” said Kalia who was treated in the hospital and has subsequently had two surgeries.
As a practising Hindu, Kalia said that he felt bad about his attacker Handel getting a 14-month prison term saying, “I was praying for him” adding that he only reacted to the situation on the night of the incident.
Indian international student and store clerk Tejeshwar Kalia says he still loves Peterborough despite being attacked there with a baseball bat by a fentanyl addict and later attacked by the justice system seeking to put him in prison in the upcoming self defence test case trial. pic.twitter.com/jox4Bx17gN
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) April 6, 2024
Meanwhile, Kalia’s counsel Jeff Ayotte on 6th April expressed confidence that when the video is shown during the jury trial, it will be clear that the police made false claims about the incident, and they will find that Tejeshwar Kalia hit the robber in an act of self-defence.
“For whatever reason, the video has been misdescribed by the Peterborough Police … but I am confident at the preliminary hearing, when the video will be shown publicly and at jury trial, 12 people are going to see this video and they are going to see what the police are telling them did not happen. We are fairly confident that a jury is going to find after seeing the video, and after hearing what Tej has to say, that he acted in self-defence, Ayotte said.
“For whatever reason, the video has been misdescribed by the Peterborough Police” — defence lawyer Jeff Ayotte, representing Indian international student Tejeshwar Kalia charged with aggravated assault in Jan. 5 incident where he used bat he was attacked with in “self defence.” pic.twitter.com/jIYlyLDnKA
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) April 6, 2024
GoFundMe takes down fundraiser launched to help Kalia with his expenses
To fund Kalia’s legal and other expenses, his friends launched a crowdfunding campaign on ‘GoFundMe’ highlighting the young student’s innocence and obvious injustice in the matter. The fundraiser was launched to raise $25,000 and was well received with many Canadians lending support to the Indian-origin student. In just two days, the campaign raised $12,600 from around 200 donors. However, GoFundMe soon pulled the plug on the campaign.
Peterborough Police Chief defends action against Kalia
While the police action and subsequent charging Kalia for hitting the robber in self-defence with charges carrying 14-year term has triggered outrage in Canada, the Peterborough Police has defended itself.
In a public statement on 10th January, Peterborough Police Chief Stu Betts said, “I would not normally release a message of this kind, but the commentary that has taken place following our media release today… is unfair to the men and women of my Organization – they are doing great work in our community. Yes, this case is unusual, but in a world where security cameras are everywhere, do you really think we would not have seized & reviewed the footage as part of the investigation and prior to laying charges? I encourage you to stop and think about things before determining what you think has happened, or that an injustice has taken place because I’m quite confident that not one person who has made a comment about this case has seen the video or has access to the actual facts.”
Public Statement: I would not normally release a message of this kind, but the commentary that has taken place following our media release today, in relation to a store clerk also being charged following an attempted robbery (https://t.co/driE7iidYc), is unfair to the men and… https://t.co/wBeVI05vWp
— Chief Stu Betts, Peterborough Police Service (@PtboChiefBetts) January 10, 2024
The Canadian netizens, however, were not convinced by the long explanation put up by Betts with many calling the police an “embarrassment” and demanding Betts’s resignation.
