MONTREAL - He was seen as a role model in the Montreal Tamil community, a proud business owner who was honoured by hundreds who attended his funeral Monday to pay their final respects to Suntharam Yogarajah.

"He's an example for them who came and who worked hard and who invested," said Ramani Balendra of the South Asian Women's Community Centre. "He had businesses and then he brought the families."

Yogarajah, 64, was stabbed to death last Wednesday outside his Victoria Ave. dépanneur and restaurant, a tragic end to what appears to have started as an argument over garbage being placed too close to his property.

Police arrested Alberto Manuel Martinez, 58, and he's been charged with second degree murder. His next court appearance is due for Tuesday.

Yogarajah – or "Yoga" to his friends – had come to Canada as part of a wave of Tamil refugees in the 1980s to escape the kind of danger he ultimately fell victim to.

"The Tamils who are fleeing from Sri Lanka like to escape oppression by the Sri Lankan government," Balendra said. "And here, he ends up in this violent situation. It's, it's very sad."

His family and friends remembered "Yoga" as a hard working and generous man.

"He set an example that you had to work hard in Canada, in Montreal, to survive to live so you can bring your family," said Sivananthan Muthuckumaru of the Tamil Elders Association of Quebec.

For the last seven years Yogarajah worked with the Tamil Elders Association, helping underprivileged members of his community.

In 2004 and 2005 he also worked to send help back home to the victims of the devastating Boxing Day tsunami.

"When I heard this news I was shocked," Muthuckumaru said. "I didn't know what to do, what to say, because my right hand man – I lost my right hand man for my community."

Yogarajah leaves behind his wife, two sons and four daughters.