Tamil gangs dispense their own justice
pallavan
Meet the leaders of bloody turf war
Michelle Shephard
CRIME REPORTER
Sunday Special
The man known as ``The Cat'' has dodged bullets more than once and now he is
busily dodging questions.
He answers mainly by slowly shaking his head or shrugging. Speaking softly,
almost timidly, he leans heavily on his cane, tugs modestly at his plaid
shirt and continually flashes a smile packed with startlingly white teeth.
Are you a prominent member of a Toronto gang?
Who are your enemies?
Who wants to kill you?
Finally, with a dismissive wave, Panchalingam Nagalingam, says police have
it all wrong and that he leads a dull, unremarkable life. He's a 28-year-old
Tamil Canadian trying to help raise a 2-year-old son, so why the interest in
him?
His answers are not unlike those given by other reputed gang leaders.
Nagalingam is considered one of the old guard, a veteran of the decade-long
Toronto gang battle between Sri Lankans who escaped civil war in their
country by immigrating to Canada in the early 1990s.
In recent interviews, police investigators and Tamil community leaders, all
requesting anonymity, say the gang rivalry between the two main factions -
the AK Kannan and the VVT - has been steady over the last decade. Police
believe some of their members have imported heroin, concocted elaborate
credit card fraud schemes, robbed, assaulted and were assaulted. Some are
suspects in major homicide investigations.
Even though police state some gang members are responsible for heinous
crimes, the majority of members have never been convicted. Police claim
that's because they pay for good lawyers, they won't turn informant even to
provide information on rival gang members, and no one will co-operate as a
witness.
Instead, they take matters into their own hands.
The Tamil slang word is ``pila'' and this is what drives the gangs. The word
roughly translates as ``machismo'' or is described as an arrogant attitude
that won't let them back down.
On the street it means the gang members swap violent incidents, rather than
letting the police and courts exact justice. One shooting is often followed
by another, retaliation building throughout Toronto and sometimes beyond
into the closely linked scene in Montreal.
A recent display of these testosterone-driven crimes followed a double
homicide last October. The killing enraged VVT gang members, who were
furious about the public and police attention it garnered. And the gunmen
had hit the wrong target, killing two teenagers - something that even gang
members abhor.
``There are two courts, Canada's and God's court. One day they'll be
punished because they killed innocent kids,'' says ``Biggie,'' a 23-year-old
who police say is linked with the VVT.
What he doesn't say outright is that the gangs sometimes choose the journey
to God's court.
In reaction to the double homicide last October, the VVT shot back,
according to community and police sources.
First, they went after Nagalingam, the Cat, the 28-year-old man who has an
uncanny ability to cheat death.
In December, he escaped shots that were fired, police allege, by VVT
members. They narrowly missed his girlfriend and baby son as they sat in a
car at their Markham home. No one was hurt but in the aftermath, Nagalingam
publicly challenged his attackers. Through the media and his community, he
told them to come to him and leave his family alone.
In March, he was alone when he walked into an ambush as he left the Mimico
Detention Centre where he was serving a sentence on weekends.
He was shot six times, rushed to hospital and listed in critical condition.
But he miraculously survived and walked out of hospital, just as he had in
1994 after a crushing car accident that killed three others. A crude scar
now divides his chest into two, the only physical reminder of the accident.
``I don't like to talk about (the shooting),'' Nagalingam says.
``Why would you be attacked?'' he is asked.
A shrug is his only answer.
A 23-year-old man, who police allege is a VVT member, was arrested and faces
various charges including attempted murder.
Jothiravi Sittampalam was next. He's the 31-year-old man known simply as
Kannan and is said to have started the AK Kannan.
He was tailed in April as he left the Brampton courthouse. When he arrived
at an off-ramp of Highway 404, his car was surrounded, shots fired wildly.
The only injury was a cut on one of his fingers.
``This was huge,'' said one officer who investigates organized crime. ``To
go after Kannan in such a brazen attack was bold.''
When asked last month about the attack following a court appearance on
charges of credit card fraud, Kannan just shrugs, refusing to answer. He
then leaves the courthouse through an illegal exit, activating a security
alarm before jumping into a waiting van to avoid a reporter and
photographer. Before he drives away he pulls alongside the photographer and
tauntingly honks his horn.
His case is still before the courts.
Just last weekend, another alleged AK Kannan member was attacked. Thavam
Krishnan was swarmed by a group of armed men and beaten outside a doughnut
shop on Eglinton Ave. E., near Markham Rd. By the time police arrived at the
scene everyone had scattered - including 23-year-old Krishnan.
``Most people can't understand that shootings can happen simply because
somebody looked at somebody the wrong way in a bar, or somebody shows up in
the wrong territory, in another guy's area or somebody went after somebody's
friend,'' says a senior organized crime officer. ``All it takes is one call
on a c-phone and a shooting will happen. It can be that basic.''
Police will not give the exact number of AK Kannan and VVT gang members they
have listed in their database and say they try to concentrate mainly on a
``handful'' of lead members.
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`If police could successfully put behind bars, for a very long time, a few
key leaders, I really believe the gangs would fall apart.'
- Prominent member of Toronto's Tamil community, requesting anonymity
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``If police could successfully put behind bars, for a very long time, a few
key leaders, I really believe the gangs would fall apart,'' says one
prominent member of Toronto's Tamil community.
Since 1997, at least five killings remain unsolved, all with innocent
victims who police say were caught in the gangs' crossfire.
In 1997, 19-year-old University of Waterloo student Kapilan Palasanthiran
was killed in a drive-by shooting while studying in a doughnut shop.
In 1998, Freddas ``Jim'' BwaBwa was stabbed to death in St. James Town when
he tried to intervene in a fight. At least one of the suspects has gang
ties. A year later, in 1999, Sandy Ebrahim was shot in a York Region fast
food restaurant parking lot. Police believe the 16-year-old had been
standing near the gang's intended target.
Last October's double homicide claimed the lives of teenagers Sujeevan
Sritharan and Rishikesan Selvarajah. They were killed as they sat in a
parking lot of a Scarborough building where gang members are thought to
live.
Community sources say 18-year-old Sritharan was beaten up by gang members
just a week before he was killed, but on the night of the killing he was
mistaken as a member of the Guilder Boys, a gang affiliated with the VVT.
The shooters were after someone with the street name ``Nari,'' meaning
``fox,'' who drove the same model of car.
In each case there are suspects, but no charges.
It was just after he arrived in Canada in 1992 that Kannan started his gang,
police and community sources say. The 31-year-old named the gang after his
nickname, Kannan, meaning god, and his love for the AK-47 assault weapon.
But by the late 1990's, Kannan told community members and police that he no
longer had any interest in the gang. He got married, had children and
started a trucking company.
He lives, according to court documents, in a middle-class Scarborough
neighbourhood near the Toronto Zoo. Most days, the blinds in the house are
drawn. His trucking company is registered to an address in another
Scarborough neighbourhood, near Brimley Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E., just south
of the house. Police question whether Kannan ever left the gang and
community members said that even if he wanted to, it would be difficult,
since he would always be a target as the one-time leader of the AK Kannan.
If Kannan does manage to ever step down as leader, sources say Nagalingam,
the ``Cat,'' is moving up in the AK Kannan ranks as is another member,
Sivakumar Ariyarathnam.
The VVT's leadership has changed over the past few years but community
sources say two of the old boys - Suresh Kanagalingam or ``Koli'' and
Kailesh Thanabalasingham - are considered by most to be the leaders.
Koli (a nickname that originally started as ``goalie Suresh'' because of the
position he plays in soccer but later got changed to Koli, which means
``chicken'' in Tamil) was charged last September following the beating and
running down of a prominent AK Kannan member with a car. His charge of
attempted murder is still before the courts. Now out on bail, he is
scheduled to stand trial in December.
Like so many of the alleged gang members, Koli has been both a suspect and a
victim. In 1998, he made headlines when he was abducted from a Parliament
St. pizza shop. He surfaced days later, bruised and beaten but he would not
say anything to police. Thanabalasingham is not as high-profile, described
as more of a backroom figure who splits his time between Toronto and Ottawa.
Then there is Jeyaseelan Thuraisingam, the man who police say started the
Seelapu gang and is simply called Seelapu himself. Police and community
sources say his gang is aligned with the VVT. He said in an interview last
month that he has left the gang now and lives east of the city in farm
country.
Toronto police now downplay any connections between Toronto's street
violence and the civil war in the members' homeland.
``The fact of the matter is people aren't involved in drive-by shootings in
Toronto to further a cause back in Sri Lanka,'' an organized crime officer
said.
Yet traditionally, law enforcement agencies, especially the RCMP, have
connected some senior VVT members with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), a Sri Lankan rebel group designated a terrorist group by the U.S.
Having cited this connection, police arrested two alleged gang bosses in
1998 and had them declared a danger to Canada. They were then ordered
deported under the Immigration Act.
Both Srirajan Rasa and Niranjan Claude Fabian are appealing these orders,
denying any connection to LTTE, according to court documents. Their lawyers
also argue that since Canadian newspaper accounts of their clients' alleged
connection to LTTE have been carried in Sri Lankan newspapers, the men will
be tortured or killed if sent back. The outcome of their cases will be
influenced by the decision, now being deliberated by nine Supreme Court
justices, concerning Manickavasagam Suresh. He too was accused of raising
funds for LTTE and claims he will be killed if returned to Sri Lanka. The
decision on his case is not expected for months.
In Toronto, there are about 200,000 Tamils. But fewer than 100 are involved
in Toronto street gangs, police say. That 0.05 per cent of the population
feeds the racism and misconceptions the general public has about Toronto's
Tamil community, various leaders complain.
``It's street violence, it's a criminal community, not the Tamil community.
In so many ways it's exactly the same as the gangs that fight up at Kipling
or other ones in Scarborough or even the bikers,'' said a veteran organized
crime officer. ``We have to treat these gangs as organized crime because
that's what they are.''