KITCHENER -- There were heavy delays on Highway 7/8 on Tuesday morning due to an OPP investigation of a fatal shooting.

Police say they were called to reports of a shooting near Courtland Avenue around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday.

When they arrived at the scene on the westbound highway on-ramp, officers found a deceased male.

Regional Police confirmed on Wednesday morning that the victim is from Kitchener. By the afternoon, they had identified him as 20-year-old Irshad Sabriye.

"Certainly a tragic morning here for a person that was located deceased on the side of the road," said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.

The eastbound lanes of the highway from Homer Watson Boulevard to Courtland Avenue were closed to traffic for several hours while police investigated.

The on-ramp from Courtland Avenue was also closed for most of the day Tuesday.

"The highway was shut down immediately to confirm and protect the evidence," Schmidt said.

One resident, who lives in a Vanier Drive apartment building, told CTV News he saw a car pulled over on the highway around that time.

He says he heard two people arguing loudly.

Another resident who was awake with a three-month old baby says that he heard multiple gunshots from inside his nearby apartment.

"I was watching a movie at about 2 a.m. and we heard three or four bangs. I came out to the balcony on the third floor to see what it was, I thought it maybe would have been a raccoon that got caught in a garbage bin or something," remembers Senay Tesfamariam.

"Then I heard four more pops and so I started looking around and I saw a car actually do like a U-turn on the expressway here and they came down the on-ramp on Courtland."

Hours later, police responded to a report of a vehicle fire on Connaught Street. It's being considered suspicious and police now say they believe the two incidents are related.

The OPP are leading the investigation on the car fire.

The eastbound lanes of Highway 7/8 at Homer Watson reopened Tuesday evening.

The ramp from Courtland Avenue northbound to Highway 7/8 eastbound remained closed for the investigation but had reopened by Wednesday evening.