Randeep Match, an Abbotsford resident who earlier this year pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2014 death of Tarsem Dhaliwal of Surrey has been handed a 6.5-year prison term. Randeep Match, 36, was sentenced Friday in Surrey provincial court. He also received a lifetime weapons ban.
Dhaliwal left his home Jan. 17, 2014 to meet a friend and never returned home.Two days later, his family reported him missing to the Surrey RCMP and on Jan. 21 he was found dead inside his vehicle in the 18900 block of 92 Avenue in the Port Kells area.
Police at the time said that Match and Dhaliwal knew each other.Match had initially been charged with second-degree murder in the case.
His prior criminal history includes being sentenced in 2012 to five and a half years in prison on a charge of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Match and another Abbotsford man, Manindervir Virk, were arrested in September 2009 after being spotted by the Air One police helicopter running through a berry field in the area of Mt. Lehman Road and Zero Avenue – along the Canada-U.S. border.
Officers dispatched to the scene discovered four duffel bags filled with 40 bricks of cocaine valued at between $1.4 and $2 million. Match and Virk were found hiding in some bushes and were arrested at the scene.
They were convicted in November 2011 and sentenced the following September.
Information at the sentencing hearing indicated that Match was married with two children and had been a truck driver before becoming a carpet layer.He was also an active volunteer at the Sikh temple.
COURT documents showed that Match was born in India and came to Montreal in 1998. He was a landed immigrant. After spending some years in Montreal, he moved to Abbotsford where he was living with his wife, their two daughters, and his wife’s grandmother.
Match completed Grade 10 in India. After coming to Canada, he was placed in Grade 9. The school he attended was French speaking and he did not do well there because of the language barrier and soon dropped out. After leaving school, he went to work at a company assembling furniture.
When he moved to Abbotsford, he first worked at a nursery. In 2000, he obtained his truck driver’s licence. He worked for a trucking company for a few years before buying his own truck and he became an owner / operator. In 2010, he changed careers and took a job installing carpets.
