Kazeem Kolawole, a 19 year-old Nigerian was today sentenced to life in prison for a gang shooting in South London last year that left a five year-old girl, Thusha Kamaleswaran paralysed. Thusha was playing in her aunt’s food and wine store in Stockwell, when she was accidentally shot in the chest during the shootout.
Kolawole was an accomplice to ring leader Nathaniel Grant, 21, who actually carried out the shooting and ‘sidekick’ Anthony McCalla, 20. The trio from the Organised Criminals gang, cycled to the store intending to kill rival gangster Roshaun Bryan of rival gang ‘All Bout Money’. However, the hit was botched and they ended up hitting young Thusha and seriously wounded another innocent bystander, Roshan Selvakumar in the attack.
While Roshan Selvakumar, 35, was shot in the face and still has bullet fragments lodged in his skull, Thusha would spend the rest of her life on a wheelchair and would need care for the rest of her life. The two were innocent victims of the gang feud.
The shooting, on March 29, 2011, was captured on the store’s CCTV camera and showed the emotional moments when the shy five-year-old with pigtails, danced happily in the aisles of her aunt’s small store. Moments later, she was knocked down by a bullet to the chest fired through the store’s open door by the three men as they pursued members of a rival gang.
Now six, Thusha is paralyzed from her chest downwards and remains in a wheelchair, as her parents’ world have been turned upside down. Her family has been left battling debt and her mother is said to have suffered insomnia and depression.
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