SURREY –The following statement was released from Surrey-Newton MLA Harry Bains following the murder of his nephew Arun on April 19: 

“First of all, let me thank everyone who reached out to our family with your love and best wishes.

“I want to extend a special thanks to the parents who have also lost children to violence. Your visits have given us the courage to go on.

“At this point, we know very little about what happened. We are meeting regularly with the RCMP and we urge anyone with any information about this or any crime to come forward. Justice for Arun will not bring him back to us, but it may spare another family the immense pain we are feeling.

“I have been an advocate for my community against crime for a long time. I will continue that work, but today I feel we must put a far greater emphasis on prevention. We need to support parents and teachers in early and effective interventions when a young person is following the wrong path.

“I will continue to sit down with other families through the coming weeks and I am hopeful that we can form a support group. I will also be speaking out for more help in our education system.

“If I can say one thing to all our friends and neighbours; hug your children. Tell them you love them as often as you can.”