A distant relative attended a family celebration days before the tragedy
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Emilie Bilodeau
The Press
” Why ? “Since little Aaron, 11, and Angel, 13, were found dead in their Laval home, this is the question that the relatives of the Arora family have been asking themselves constantly. “Why did he do that? »
“I have never seen Kamal being impatient. Never. He loved his children so much,” says Pooja*, a distant relative of the Aroras who has seen them regularly since their arrival in Canada.
Kamal is the diminutive of Kamaljit Arora. This father is accused of the premeditated murder of his two youngest children. The boy and the young teenager would have been intoxicated, then drowned in a bathtub. The 45-year-old man is also charged with assault, since he allegedly tried to strangle his wife, the mother of his children. All week, his state of health did not allow him to meet a lawyer and appear at the Laval courthouse.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Police dispatched Monday evening to a house on rue Lauzon, in Laval, where the tragedy occurred
” I can not believe it. We all have no idea what happened.” breathes Pooja, who wishes to grieve in anonymity.
A week before the double murder, the Arora couple had invited more than thirty people to their house in Sainte-Dorothée to celebrate the 11e birthday of Aaron, his youngest son. “They had a house party and we were there. He [Kamal] seemed normal that day. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was enjoying the party, ”says Pooja, on the phone.
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
Aaron had celebrated his 11e birthday at the beginning of the month.
The woman has known the Arora family since arriving in Canada in 2015. The couple and their three children left India to immigrate to a cousin’s home in Laval. The couple then rented their own apartment. For a month, the family lived in Winnipeg, but returned to Laval. She had owned the house on rue Lauzon for barely three months, says the woman on the phone.
The mother had been employed in a specialized uniform company in Laval for barely a month. She was finishing the clothes. It was impossible to know if the father was employed. He studied business science at an Indian college, according to his Facebook profile, which he has not updated since arriving in Canada.
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
The Arora couple a few months after arriving in Canada
A few photos of his three children appear on his page when they were younger: at birth, at school, in an inflatable pool, all smiles. Contrary to what the media reported, the girl who died was called Angel and not Anzel, information confirmed by the Police Department of the City of Laval, Friday evening. A little angel gone to heaven.
” She’s crying. She’s crying. »
Pooja mostly saw the Aroras at large family gatherings. Due to COVID-19, their encounters fell apart, but she had grown closer to Aaron and Angel’s mother in the past month. She never witnessed a quarrel between Kamaljit and his wife.
“They always came to family parties and I never noticed anything weird,” notes Pooja. “In fact, Kamal, he was always caring, he helped everyone in the house,” she adds, in English.
The day after the murders, Pooja spoke to the mother of the little victims. “She cries a lot. She doesn’t understand what happened either. She is so sad. She’s crying. She’s crying,” Pooja said trying to hold back her own sobs.
She confirms that Kamaljit Arora suffered from a major depression in 2021, as reported by some media, but she was convinced that the father of the family was doing better thanks to the treatments.
Two years ago he was ill. He had depression. I imagine it was his depression that returned.
Pooja (fictitious first name), about Kamaljit Arora
Kamaljit Arora’s father flew from India to Montreal on Wednesday to support the grieving family. The funerals of the two children, aged 11 and 13, are scheduled to take place on Sunday.
The teenager saved her mother
Namita Verma learned of the sad fate of Aaron and Angel on Tuesday from an aunt who lives in Canada. “It’s so shocking,” she wrote in an exchange with The Press.
Namita Verma, who lives in India, was close to the mother of the two children before she immigrated to Canada with her family. The couple had been married for 18 or 19 years, she said. He had three children in India. The eldest is now 18 years old. It was she who saved her mother from her father’s clutches on Monday night. It was she who went to a neighbor to call for help.
The Arora family immigrated seven years ago, continues Namita Verma. “After they moved, we occasionally “hello” to each other on Messenger. […], but we weren’t close enough for me to know how his marriage was going. It troubles me a lot,” she said.
* Fictitious first name
