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Man Who Gunned Down Ex-Girlfriend on Campus Gets Life in Prison

Over a 40-day period, Gurjinder Dhaliwal sent 1,719 text messages and made 2,328 calls to Maple Batalia, who was studying health sciences at Simon Fraser University, in Surrey, British Columbia. Then he killed her.
Maple Batalia

A British Columbia man will spend at least 21 years behind bars for gunning down his ex-girlfriend on a university campus after he saw her studying with a male classmate.

Maple Batalia died in 2011 at the age of 19, weeks after she ended her on-again, off-again romance with Gurjinder "Gary" Dhaliwal for good.

She had found out he had cheated on her, but he wanted to reconcile.

Over a 40-day period, and using two cellphones, Dhaliwal sent 1,719 text messages and made 2,328 calls to Batalia, who was studying health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver.

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The pair had a couple of violent confrontations in the weeks that followed, according to an agreed statement of facts read out in court. Then, on the night of September 25 2011, he went to campus in a rental car and lay in wait. When he saw Batalia and her male friend hug goodbye in the parking lot, he drove the car forward and fired five shots — three of which hit her in the torso and the arm. Then he got out of the car and slashed the top and back of her head as she lay collapsed on the ground.

The young woman died in hospital.

Dhaliwal, who was initially charged with first-degree murder, pled guilty to second-degree murder last week.

"I'm sorry," the 24-year-old told Batalia's family and friends in a Vancouver courtroom on Monday. "I know I did a terrible thing."

He was sentenced to life in prison, with no eligibility for parole for 21 years.

The court also heard about the pain and anguish that Batalia's family still endures, more than four years after her death.

"My life is aimless, and the nights are long," her mother, Sarbjit, said on Monday, speaking in Punjabi. "My life feels like a burden. All the color is lost. I have lost my taste for everything. Whenever I do something I remember how my daughter looked in her coffin. I wish someone had killed me instead of her, it would have been much better than this."

She directed her anger at her daughter's killer, imploring him to explain: "Why did you kill her?"

Choking back tears, Rosaleen Batalia expressed a measure of relief that her sister "got some justice" as she spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.

"It's been a really long time and maybe she can finally rest in peace," she said. "We just want this to be an example in the community. That no matter what you do, it does catch up to you and justice must be served."

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