Year After Family of 4 Froze to Death on Canada-US Border, 3 Arrested in Gujarat

The family, who were from Gujarat's Dingucha, were found frozen near the US-Canada border in January last year.

The family, comprising of 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, 37, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and three-year-old son Dharmik, were found frozen near the US-Canada border in January last year. 

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint) 

Two people have been arrested in connection with the deaths of four members of an Indian family, who were found frozen near the United States (US)-Canada border in January last year, the police said on Sunday, 15 January.

With this, the total number of people nabbed in connection with the case has risen to three.

The Indian family had frozen to death in a field in Canada's Manitoba on 19 January last year, 12 metres away from the US border – which they were attempting to cross illegally.

The family comprised of 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, 37, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and three-year-old son Dharmik.

They were among 11 people who were trying to enter the US from Canada illegally on 19 January 2022. Apart from the ill-fated family of four, seven others were apprehended by US authorities. Most of them belonged to Gandhinagar's Kalol and Mehsana.

A year after the shocking case came to light, the police said that they had nabbed the agents for facilitating the illegal immigration of the family from Gujarat's Dingucha village to the US.

'Asked Family To Walk in Minus 35 Degrees Celsius To Evade Arrest'

The two agents, Bhavesh Patel, 30, and Yogesh Patel, 42, told the police that they had asked the group of 11 people who wanted to cross over to the US to brave freezing temperatures to avoid getting caught.

"You have to walk in minus 35 degrees Celsius to evade arrest by Canadian or US security agencies. Follow the lights of an American gas station because you will find no navigation available in the dark and extreme weather," the smuggling agents are reported to have told the family, as per The Times of India.

The police said that the family had expressed their discomfort to cross over to the US in freezing temperatures since their young children were with them, but were told that extreme weather conditions were their best bet.

"The agents told them that stormy, cold weather conditions were ideal cover to cross into the US undetected. They said it was their best opportunity and last chance to cross into the US or else return to India or stay back in Canada," an official said.

Charges Against the Accused

The accused persons have been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, human trafficking, and criminal conspiracy.

The Ahmedabad crime branch declared that two others, who are currently residing in the US and Canada, are wanted in the case.

The "crossing agents," the police said, were supposed to get between Rs 60 and 65 lakh for every person they helped cross into the US.

"The victims were taken to Toronto in Canada and later to Vancouver. The agents then dumped them at Winnipeg in Manitoba province leaving them to cross over to the US on their own," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Chaitanya Mandlik said while addressing the press.

Gujarat's Migrant Smuggling 'Kingpin' Nabbed

One of the accused, identified as Bharat alias Bobby Patel, 47, is considered to be the alleged kingpin of human smuggling from Gujarat's Dingucha. He was nabbed by the police in December last year.

"Bharat Patel is one of the most notorious illegal immigration agents from Gujarat. He has 28 legally issued passports (which he used) to slip in and out of the country," a Gujarat police official was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

The accused is suspected to have helped over 1,500 people in Gujarat get fake passports. An official said that Patel had been running a major migrant smuggling racket from India to the US through Turkey and Mexico.

His name had also come up in the probe into the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scam in Gujarat, in which ineligible students were helped to get high scores in the test so that they could go to Canada on a student visa and then enter the US illegally.

Rampant Illegal Immigration from Dingucha

The tragic death of the Patel family had shined a spotlight on how rampant illegal immigration was in the Dingucha village, which comprises of merely 3,600 people.

According to locals, hundreds of people harbour the 'American Dream' and aim to move to the US and Canada for economic betterment, even illegally if need be.

The main cause behind this is the high rate of unemployment.

"If they don't go to America, what life do our children have here? They score 90 percent in their exams and still can't get admitted to medical college," Bharat Patel, a local from Dingucha, had told The Quint previously.

Migration from Dingucha to the US, and sometimes even Canada and Australia, has been occurring for decades. The first wave of migration started in the the mid-1960s and has persisted ever since.

The crisis surrounding illegal immigration also serves as a business opportunity for human smugglers, such as Bhavesh, Yogesh, and Bobby Patel.

(With inputs from PTI and The Times of India.)