The elderly mother of a well-known Brampton real estate agent and media personality, who saved her son from a brutal attack by three masked men outside her home in August, has received a city bravery award.
Mayor Patrick Brown said Jasmail Kaur Mann’s heroism “puts everyone to shame,” which is why the city council unanimously passed a motion to honor her and “celebrate this moment of courage.”
“I think he showed courage and bravery and an example of being a local hero,” Brown said during the award ceremony Thursday at Brampton city hall.
Joti Singh Mann, anchor of Fateh Media 5, which broadcasts in Punjabi on radio and YouTube, was left with life-changing injuries in what police said was a targeted attack on August 4. Three masked men with a machete and an ax were attacked. after getting into his car in the area of Mayfield Road and Hurontario Street around 8:15 a.m.
Brown said that after people heard about the attack, council members and people in the community talked about what “this remarkable senior” did.
Brown says that after people heard about the attack, council members and community members were talking about what “this remarkable senior citizen” did. (CBC)
Brown said he brought the motion to the council, which resulted in the city’s first bravery award.
“You see three guys with guns like that and obviously it’s fragile. It could have been a very horrific event for his own safety,” Brown said.
“I just think it speaks to a remarkable moment of courage to run in the face of machetes like this with no fear, just love,” he added.
“There is something beautiful about that bond between a mother and child.”
The family continues to fear
Speaking through an interpreter, Brampton North MP Ruby Sahota, Mann said she went to the kitchen to put away a cup when she saw the attackers in the doorway.
He said he came out and told them he had already called the police and they were on their way.
She also found her son’s shoe, which she threw at the masked men, but she believes they were scared off after they heard she had called the police.
After the attack, Brampton councilor Gurpreet Dhillon told CBC Toronto that it was three days after Joti Singh Mann received a threatening phone call.
Police are still trying to find the attackers, and police have no word on a motive for the attack.
Mann’s mother said that whenever she remembers the attack it still brings tears to her eyes, adding that she wants the attackers to be found and justice served.
“Who are those people who could be so inhumane that they were cutting [my] son as if he were a tree or some object and not a human being?” he asked.
Peel Regional Police have released this image of the three men suspected of attacking Joti Singh Mann. (Submitted by Peel Regional Police)
“[I] I just want these people brought to justice.”
Sahota said the family wants to stay in their home, but they are afraid.
“They’ve been advised by some to move, but they love their home, they want to stay in their home but there’s a fear they’ll still feel,” he said.
“Even the grandchildren, the children of the victim, they are very afraid, they are very afraid after the incident.”
“They changed my life,” says the victim
Meanwhile, after almost a month in the hospital, Joti Singh Mann returned home on August 28.
He said he is “happy to be alive today” but still has severe pain in his feet.
“[In] A few seconds changed my life… I lost my big toe, so many injuries and almost more than 180 stitches all over my body,” he said.
“[From] from the 4th of August until now, I sleep only three to four hours a night and when I do sleep there are so many nightmares. So, I think they changed my life. I don’t know why they changed my life, maybe God knows.”
Mann was left with life-changing injuries in what police said was a targeted attack on Aug. 4. Three masked men, wielding a machete and an axe, attacked him after getting into his car. (CBC)
Mann said he believes if the attackers had just a few more seconds, he would have been killed.
“My mother, she gave me a second wind, she is very strong and [a] brave mother to me,” she said.
“Otherwise, the way they attacked me, I don’t think I would have survived.”