Surrey man charged in wife's death

A Surrey man has appeared in provincial court, charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife on Sunday.

Navreet Waraich, 23, was found badly injured in her basement suite inthe Newton area and died later in hospital.

Her husband, Jatinder Waraich, made his first court appearance inSurreyon Monday.

Relatives say Navreet, the mother of a four-month-old baby, had come to Canada a few years ago after getting married in India.

Spate of attacks

She is third South Asian woman in the Lower Mainland to be targeted in the past two weeks.

Grade 1 teacher Manjit Panghali, 30, four months pregnant and the mother of a three-year-old girl, disappeared nearly two weeks ago. Her badly burned body was later found at the Roberts Bank port facility.

So far, there have been no arrests in the case.

On Oct. 19, Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman, 40, of Port Coquitlam, was shot in the head by her husband, who then fatally shot himself. She remains in critical condition.

Call for help

The attacks have prompted a call for more social services for the Indo-Canadian community in Surrey.

Charan Gill, who heads Progressive Intercultural Community Services, is demanding that the B.C. and federal governments step up bilingual counselling services for women.

"We are losing young people, losing beautiful women. They're being murdered," he told CBC News on Tuesday.

But he said there are fewbilingual counsellors easily accessible by women in the Indo-Canadiancommunity.

"There's no women's program per se in Surrey. They're all centred in the Burnaby area. Who crosses the bridges? Nobody does."

Gill said the recent string of attacks against Indo-Canadian women has awakenedthe community to the problem.Radio India is hosting a forum this Thursday on violence issues in Surrey.