4.9k ‘left’ for US illegally despite Dingucha tragedy

Ahmedabad: Dingucha – a small village a few kilometres from Kalol district in Gandhinagar – hit the headlines in January after a family of four froze to death while trying to illegally enter the US through the Canadian border. While the news shook the world, it has hardly acted as a deterrent for people from Gujarat approaching smugglers who employ life-threatening methods to help them cross into the US illegally.

According to the latest information received from state and central agencies probing illegal immigration rackets in the state, about 4,900

people from Mehsana

, Gandhinagar and

Ahmedabad districts

have embarked on illegal journeys to the US after the Dingucha incident.

Senior police officers, who are investigating the cases of human smuggling in the state, suspect the agents, already under scanner in the earlier cases, of being involved in the latest cases too.

“One of the main human smugglers from the state is Bharat alias Bobby Patel. He operates the illegal routes with help from Brugesh Patel, Rajesh Patel, and Yogesh Sathwara – who hail from Kalol or Mehsana. They have been sending people to the US illegally through Mexico and Turkey for almost a decade now. They were the ones involved in sending Jagdish Patel, his wife and kids from Dingucha to Canada, where they died just a few metres away from the US border while attempting to walk into the land of their dreams during a blinding blizzard,” said a senior officer of the Gujarat police.

TOI has learnt that the Gujarat police were tracking Guramritpal alias Pablo Singh from Jalandhar in Punjab, an accomplice of Bharat Patel, when they found information that, since the Dingucha deaths, 4,869 people from Gujarat’s three districts were sent to the US illegally.

Sources in the Gujarat police said that Singh and Bharat Patel “have been involved in the human smuggling business for some years now”.

A senior cop said, “We also suspect Bharat Patel of having sent six people from North Gujarat to the US recently. However, their boat capsized while crossing the St Regis river on the Canada-US border. The illegal immigrants were fortunately rescued by the US border and customs police along with other agencies. They will now be facing a legal case in the US.”