23-year-old man charged for Indian toddler Gurshan’s death

MELBOURNE - A 23-year-old man has been charged for the death of three-year-old Indian boy Gurshan Singh Channa, whose body was found on a roadside in Melbourne’s north on Thursday.

Dhillon Gursewak was charged with manslaughter due to criminal negligence and is appearing in an out-of-sessions hearing at St. Kilda Road Police complex on Sunday evening.

He is not expected to apply for bail, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The man is not a relative, but did live in the same house in David Street, Lalor as Gurshan.

Victoria Police had earlier revealed they were hunting for a green Holden Commodore, Australia’s largest and most fuel-efficient V6 engine car, seen near where Gurshan’s was found on Thursday night.

The development was then described as the first solid lead that detectives have announced publicly since launching their investigation.

Gurshan’s body was found near Melbourne Airport on Thursday night, about 30 kilometers from where the toddler disappeared from a house in Lalor six hours earlier.

According to the police, the Commodore seen at the Oaklands Junction about the time the toddler’s body was found.

They have appealed to everyone who may have seen the car, to urgently contact them, but declined to confirm if the driver is a suspect in the killing, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Gurshan arrived in Australia in January with his parents, and was due to return to India this week after father Harjit Singh Channa failed to find work in Melbourne.

Singh and his wife Harpreet Singh Channa gave statements to police for around five hours on Friday, but authorities insist they are not suspects.t is being claimed that the infant vanished while his mother was having a shower.

Victoria Police had earlier said that an autopsy has not determined the cause of death, and there was no evidence of violence on his body, which was found fully-clothed in blue jeans and a gray shirt.

Police hoped further testing, including toxicology tests, could provide answers.

In the only clue previously revealed, a family friend Sim Kaur said the three-year-old had been screaming in the Lalor home because his father had gone to the library.

Detectives followed the route from the family home to the Lalor Library, and door-knocked residents along the street looking for anyone who had seen the boy.

Investigators are believed to be leaning away from the theory that Gurshan had fallen victim to a random attack.

One possibility is that he died of natural causes and someone panicked and disposed of his body.

The case threatens to further strain relations between India and Australia, which are already tense following a series of allegedly racist attacks against Indians in Melbourne. (ANI)