3-year sentences, likely deportation for international students in horrific B.C. pedestrian dragging

Two men will serve time behind bars and ultimately may be deported for a horrific hit-and-run in Surrey last year.

Warning: This story contains graphic details that some readers may find upsetting.

The men who were inside a Ford Mustang that struck and dragged a man to his death in Surrey last year have received three-year prison sentences.

The Mustang was driven by Gaganpreet Singh. His passenger, to whom the car belonged, was Jagdeep Singh.

The two offenders pleaded guilty to a number of charges, including failing to stop after an accident and interference with a dead body. They came to Canada from India on international student visas and are expected to face deportation at the end of their sentence.

The sentence was handed down Wednesday in Surrey provincial court, where the men were handcuffed and taken into custody to begin serving their time.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2024, the two men struck a pedestrian who was reportedly already lying in the road near the intersection of University Drive and 104 Avenue when the crash occurred. Though prone on the roadway, the victim was alive before he was struck.

A witness was on the phone with a 911 operator when the Mustang hit the man, and audio played in court in May captures the caller’s reaction.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” says the witness, in the recording.

When the 911 operator asks what happened, a distraught witness replies: “Someone just hit him; just ran him over.”

The dispatcher directs the witness to check on the victim and whether he is awake and breathing, but the witness cannot find him.

“Oh my God. Where is he?” the witness says in the recording.

Even as the witness called out, “there’s a man underneath your car,” the vehicle sped away, dragging the victim 1.3 kilometres before pulling into a cul-de-sac, where the two occupants got out and worked together to dislodge the victim’s badly mangled body from under the car.

“From my understanding … they panicked, they became nervous and didn’t know what to,” said Gagan Nahal, Gaganpreet Singh’s lawyer, who said his condolences go out to the victim’s family and friends.

Nahal said his client is remorseful.

“He took full responsibility. He didn’t deny or minimize his role in any of this. And he entered a guilty plea at a very early stage, knowing he would be deported at the end of this sentence,” the defence lawyer said.

Prosecutor Adam Jantunen said the two offenders “had no previous criminal history.”

“They made a terrible decision that day,” he said.

• Read more: Chilling 911 call in deadly B.C. hit-and-run
• ‘Treated him like a piece of garbage’: 2 men face deportation after ‘knowingly’ dragging pedestrian under car

The deceased was a 45-year-old father and husband, who is being referred to only as “J.G.,” at his family’s request.

“It was an absolutely horrific case and it was an extremely sad case,” said Jantunen.

“The victim was well loved by his family, his friends, and members of his First Nation and his community,” he added.

In a victim impact statement read out in court, J.G.’s widow wrote: “They treated him like a piece of garbage, dumping him on the side of the road.”

“The nature of how he died was so violent,” she added. “He was so severely injured, we were not able to view his body.”

Gaganpreet Singh and Jagdeep Singh, both 22, have both said they regret their actions, with Gaganpreet apologizing to the family through an interpreter in court.