Canadian court sentenced life imprisonment to the murderer of Ghaziabad student, no guilty plea was accepted

A Toronto court sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the murder of Indian student Karthik Vasudev. Giving this information on Tuesday (April 21, 2026), the student’s family said that the court rejected the argument of the accused that he is not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.

According to Global News Toronto, Toronto’s Superior Court, headed by Justice Jane Kelly, on Monday convicted Richard Edwin on two counts of ‘first-degree murder’ (murder committed under conspiracy) for the murder of two strangers on April 7 and 9, 2022.

Edwin admitted to shooting Vasudev, a 21-year-old resident of Ghaziabad and a student of Seneca College, but the defense argued that the accused was suffering from mental illness and could not differentiate between right and wrong, hence he should not be held criminally responsible (NCR).

The court admitted that Edwin was suffering from ‘schizophrenia’ at the time of the incident, but rejected NCR’s argument and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The order, published in Global News Toronto and shared with PTI by the victim’s father, details the sequence of events. According to this, Vasudev was walking from Sherborne Station towards the stairs of Bloor Street East when Edwin passed him, then turned back and fired several bullets at Vasudev’s bench.

Vasudev’s father Jitesh Vasudev told PTI from Toronto that he and his wife stayed in Canada to attend the final hearing. He said, ‘After four years of legal battle, we finally got justice.’

Vasudev had gone to Toronto in January 2022 to study management, but he was murdered within a few months. Vasudev’s body later Ghaziabad He was brought there, where his younger brother performed the last rites on the banks of the Hindon River. Earlier, speaking to ‘PTI-Bhasha’, Jitesh Vasudev had expressed concern over the lack of adequate government assistance during the transportation of the body from Indira Gandhi International Airport and the absence of district administration officials at the time of the last rites. The family lives in Rajendra Nagar and Vasudev was an alumnus of the local DAV school.