When 24-year-old Gurpreet Singh found himself in a hospital bed early Friday morning, the thought of his family in India brought him to tears.
“I want to tell my brother that I love him. My younger brother. My mom. My father,” Singh said. “Will I be able to walk and see the world again?”
The young taxi driver was afraid. Hours earlier a stranger sliced his head open with a large knife making an eight inch gash.
Singh said he was driving his taxi around 2 a.m. Friday when he made a pit stop at the 7-11 on Flora Avenue and Salter Street.
Singh said a customer inside who was blocking an aisle refused to move. When he asked the person to move, he would not and became aggressive.
“He said to me, ‘oh you a tough guy? You want to meet me outside? Come meet me outside.’”
Singh said the customer left with a handful of stolen items. When he tried to make a mad dash to his cab, the person confronted him with a knife, so he went back inside and asked a worker to call 9-1-1.
Once he thought the suspect left, he tried to leave again, but the suspect was hiding behind the building.
“He run towards me and grab me from my neck,” Singh said, “He was holding a knife right onto my head… he was telling me I will stab you if I have to.”
After Singh struggled to pull the suspect into the store, he was stabbed with a large knife. The suspect ran away.
Singh now has eight stitches, and most of his hair had to chopped off.
“It hurts my religious values too cause I’ve been growing that hairs since childhood.”
Winnipeg police arrested a male youth a few hours after the incident.
The youth is charged with aggravated assault, theft under $5000, concealing a weapon and possession of a weapon.
