Seeing man without shoes, bus rider gives up his

Photo: Surjit Virk

Off-duty bus driver Surjit Singh Virk took these pictures Saturday near Vancouver when he saw something he thinks the rest of the world should see.

The man on the right saw the man on the left needed some shoes. So he took his off and gave them to him. Then he walked away.

“Don’t worry about me, I live close by,” Virk says the benefactor said. He didn’t want to be identified.

But the CBC found him, it reports today.

It turns out the man, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a 27-year-old Surrey resident who volunteers at the local mosque. He says good deeds like this are part of his Islamic faith.

The B.C. Muslim Association’s Aasim Rashid describes him as “a nice quiet gentleman who is a practising Muslim.”

“Actions always speak louder than words,” Rashid points out. “It’s easy to sit on the pulpit and preach about doing good things, but sometimes one kind gesture like this has a greater impact.”

Virk says it was a pure act of kindness.

“I think he didn’t want anybody to see him doing it,” he said. “He was simply doing it without anybody knowing it, but I happened to be sitting at the right place at the right moment, and I grabbed the moment.”