Manitoba RCMP team in Toronto to work on clues
The Canadian Bazaar
TORONTO: A team of Manitoba RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), which recovered the bodies of a Gujarati family that froze to death while trying to enter the US illegally on the night of January 19, is in Toronto to gather clues about how the family reached Manitoba.
Reported say the RCMP team is working on about a dozen clues that they have gathered about the family’s movement in Canada. The RCMP could probably check their landing record and any addresses mentioned in landing documents.
The family – Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37, their daughter Vihangi, 11 and son Dharmik, 3 – had landed in Toronto from India on January 12, 2022.
There are no clues yet how the family travelled from Toronto to Manitoba and then to the border town of Emersons and where they stayed between January 12 and January 18.
The family, which belonged to Dingucha village near Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, had reportedly paid huge amounts of money to human smugglers to reach the US.
The RCMP, which is investigation this as a case of human smuggling, is working with US agencies to unravel the truth in this case which has garnered international headlines. The RCMP is also taking help from its liaison offices in India and Washington.
Steve Shand, 47, of Florida, was arrested while he waited to pick up the family once they crossed into the US. Two smuggled Gujaratis were already in his van when he arrested. His arrest lead to the arrest of five more Gujaratis from nearby fields.
One of these seven persons told US border agents that he paid a huge amount of money to get a fake student visa to Canada. He said he had planned to cross into the US and then get a ride to reach a relative’s home in Chicago.
These seven people and the victim family were part of the same group that was being smuggled into the US from canada.
Investigators are now looking for annswers to two questions.
One, where and with whom did these Gujarati people stay in Canada before trying enter the US illegally? In Winnipeg, nobody from the Gujarati community has any answer.
Two, whom were they going to stay with once they crossed into the US?
It has turned out that Jagdish who died with wife and two children had a cousin in Chicago. And that cousin has raised over $78,000 for the victim family through a gofundme campaign. So the speculation is going to mount that the victim family was probably headed to Chicago.
There is no word yet on the last rites of the victim family whose bodies are lying in a morgue in Winnipeg. It is not known whether any family member will fly in from India for the rites.
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