Welcome to Canada, now hand over your purse.
That was the rude awakening a new immigrant got in Surrey Tuesday while waiting for the bus.
Devyani Basoodetsingh, 36, stood at a bus stop at the intersection of Scott Road and 84th Avenue Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. when a man approached her.
"Here everyone says, 'Hi,' to you, everyone says, 'Good morning,' and I thought that he was going to greet me and I stood there with a half-smile on my face but instead he robbed my bag," she said.
The assailant dragged Basoodetsingh to the ground and she hurt her jaw, back and thigh. He then made off with her purse, which contained her and her son's Mauritian passports, $500 and USB drives with copies of her resume.
"Definitely, I have a very wrong impression of Canada," she said. "What hurts more is this happened on a main road in broad daylight."
Basoodetsingh is scrambling to replace her stolen papers, credit and debit cards, but can do little without her ID.
The victim described her attacker as a white male with a thin beard, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. Anyone with information is asked to call RCMP at 604-599-0502.
