By Holly Honderich
BBC News, Toronto
On Saturday, London, Ontario’s Muslim community will lay to rest four members of a family killed in what police say was a racially motivated attack. Here’s what we know about the family.
(BBC) In May 2009, Madiha Salman was preparing to begin her master’s degree in environmental engineering at Western University in London, Ontario.
Madiha wrote to her soon-to-be faculty adviser, Professor Jason Gerhard, thanking him for his warm welcome into the programme, which she thought was going to be “a great experience of my life”. With her husband, Salman Afzaal, and their toddler, Yumna, Madiha moved to London to begin her studies. After she graduated, the couple stayed in the city, eventually having a second child, and becoming well-loved members of its tight-knit Muslim community.
On Sunday,
Madiha, Salman and Yumna, and Salman’s 74-year-old mother (who has not been named out of respect for the family’s wishes), were struck and killed by a London man in a truck during an evening walk. The sole survivor was their nine-year-old son. “They were the best amongst us,” said Saboor Khan, a London lawyer and long-time friend of the family. “Everybody knew them to be the most selfless, the most giving of people, the most generous, the most pleasant of people.” The loss has sent a shock of anxiety through members of Canada’s Muslim community, now confronted with the question of their own safety when they step outside.
Over her 12 years in London, Madiha Salman pursued a career in engineering. She earned that master’s degree and was on the cusp of completing a doctorate. The professor recalled asking Madiha when he first interviewed her for the programme how she would handle the transition to Canadian education. He learned she had overcome obstacles before. In her undergraduate class in Pakistan, she told him, she was the only woman among 174 students.
Madiha and Salman had come to Canada for a better future, her cousin Qaim-ul-Haq told the BBC from Pakistan.
