Two teenagers who murdered a 16-year-old in “cold blood” in a case of mistaken identity in west London “stabbed him 15 times while he was defenceless on the floor”, police have said.
Vanushan Balakrishnan and Ilyas Suleiman, who are both aged 18 and are from Waylands and St Jeromes Grove in Hillington respectively, were found guilty on Monday of murdering 16-year-old Rishmeet Singh.
The Old Bailey heard how Rishmeet had left his friends at around 9pm on 24 November 2021 and was walking home after an evening in a park in Southall when he saw two unknown males running towards him.
Rishmeet immediately ran back towards his friends and shouted “run, run”, but he tripped and fell on Raleigh Road, at which point one of his pursuers stabbed him at least five times in the back.
Moments later, the second male also began to stab Rishmeet, doing so at least 10 times, the Metropolitan Police said. His attackers then fled, leaving Rishmeet bleeding on the ground. The whole attack, from when Rishmeet tripped, lasted 27 seconds, according to the force.
Police and paramedics with London Ambulance Service rushed to Raleigh Road after receiving a 999 call from a member of the public, but were unable to save Rishmeet, who died at the scene just after 10pm.
Rishmeet arrived in the UK in October 2019 with his mother and grandmother to seek asylum from Jalalabad in Afghanistan. His father was killed by the Taliban six months prior to that, and shortly afterwards the militants tried to kidnap Rishmeet, forcing the family to flee to the UK.
In a statement, his mother Gulinder said: “Rishmeet was my only child, and he had his whole life ahead of him. No words could ever explain or put into context how I have felt since Rishmeet was taken from us.
“He has been raised with so much love and now he’s gone. I am struggling to understand as to how and why this happened to my baby boy. I feel I have lost everything and my life is over.
“I will never get over losing him in this way. I will not see him grow up into a young man. I will not see him leave college. I will not see him fulfil his aspirations. I will not see him learn to drive. I will not see him fall in love and get married. I will not become a grandmother and see my son grow old. I have been robbed of so many future events.
“Rishmeet was attending college completing a public service course and his ambition was to become a police officer, all he wanted to do was to help people. Rishmeet was well loved by all that knew him, he was a faithful boy and was very caring in his nature.
“I have lost my husband and now I have lost my only child, my son. Justice is finally served for Rishmeet but their sentence will never be enough for me. They have taken my whole life away from me and Rishmeet will never come home again.”
As part of the police’s murder investigation, detectives tracked Rishmeet’s movements both before and after the attack on CCTV, and also found that Balakrishnan and Suleiman – who were aged 17 at the time – spent most of the day at a flat in Austin Road, Southall, with seven other people.
The pair left the flat on bicycles shortly before 9pm, changing the clothes they had been wearing all day, arming themselves with knives, and covering their faces with Covid masks, which the jury heard was in a bid to hide their appearance as they had intended to go out and commit murder, police said.
They cycled to the canal towpath where it is believed they saw Rishmeet say goodbye to his friends on the bridge above and walk off alone, making him an easy target, before dumping their bikes and chasing after him on foot, according to the force.
Police said they were “clearly identifiable” in CCTV footage “from the distinctive clothing and Covid masks they were wearing – including Balakrishnan’s dark trousers with a white stripe behind the knee”.
CCTV showed that they returned to the bridge to collect their bikes, and cycled back to the flat in Austin Road. Analysis of their mobile phones found that Suleiman booked a taxi just before 9:30pm to his home address, and then onto Balakrishnan’s home address, Scotland Yard said.
Balakrishnan was arrested on suspicion of murder at his home address on 2 December 2021, and detectives found lyrics he had written in a notebook and on his phone, some of which described unique features of Rishmeet’s murder.
His phone also showed that he was reading news reports about Rishmeet’s murder, searching on Google only an hour after the murder, including tributes from his family about his good character and their belief that he was stabbed for the fake Gucci pouch he was wearing.
Police said that, on 28 November 2021, Balakrishnan wrote a note on his phone saying: “Saw news statement it says a good yute but he was out with paigons. Stupid media it was a glide not for some stupid s*** he wears.”
A ‘glide’ is slang for entering a rival gang’s territory. However, the court heard that Rishmeet was not in a gang and the defendants were mistaken in their choice of target.
Also on Balakrishnan’s mobile phone was an image of a long knife on his bed with what appears to be blood on it, taken at 10:19pm on the day of the murder. The knives were never recovered by officers.
The court heard that Suleiman went into hiding, having been reported missing by his mother two days after police executed a search warrant at his home address on 2 December 2021. He was eventually arrested at an address in Edgware seven days later.
The pair will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 28 April.
Detective Inspector Laura Semple said: “Rishmeet was an innocent, young 16-year-old who had his whole life ahead of him. He had just spent an enjoyable evening with his friends and was making the short walk home when he was callously chased down and knifed to death by Balakrishnan and Suleiman.
“Between them, they stabbed him 15 times while he was defenceless on the floor. There is never an excuse to murder someone in cold blood, but this case is made even more tragic by the fact that Rishmeet was wrongly targeted by his attackers.
“Balakrishnan and Suleiman left the flat that day with the intention of ending someone’s life. Poor Rishmeet was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time. My thoughts remain with Rishmeet’s family and friends, who have shown extraordinary courage throughout, including during the trial where they were forced to re-live Rishmeet’s horrific last moments.”
