The victims have been identified as Jagdish Bhai Baldev Patel (39), his wife Vaishalibhai J. Patel (37), daughter Vihangi Patel (11) and son Dharmik J. Patel (3).
The family came from Dingucha village in Kalol taluka of Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
They reached Toronto from India on January 12.
The four reached the border town of Emerson in Manitoba on January 18 for illegally crossing into the US during the night.
But all four froze to death in -35 degrees blizzard during the night.
It is not known when the bodies will be flown to India.
The Indian High Commission in Ottawa has informed the next of kin of the Patel family in India.
The four were being smuggled into the US from Canada as part of a wider human smuggling operation as seven more arrested, with one of them coming to Canada from India on a fraudulent student visa.
The Canadian Bazaar
TORONTO: All four persons of a Gujarati family, who froze to death in -35 degrees on the Canada side of the US-Canada border on Thursday while being smuggled into America, have been identified.
They have been identified as Jagdish Bhai Baldev Patel (39), his wife Vaishalibhai J. Patel (37), daughter Vihangi Patel (11) and son Dharmik J. Patel (3).
Their identity was also officially confirmed by the Indian High Commission in Ottawa and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on January 27 after completion of autopsies.
The autopsies said the cause of death was exposure to severe cold weather.
The Indian High Commission, which sent its team to Winnipeg to assist the Canadian authorities in the investogation, said it has informed the next of kin of the Patel family in India.
It is not known when the bodies will be flown to India.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said the Patel family flew to Toronto from India on January 12, 2022.
From Toronto, the family travelled to the border town of Emerson in Manitoba on the Canada-US border on, or about, January 18.
The RCMP said it is trying to find out how the family travelled from Toronto to Emerson.
Since no abandoned vehicle was found near the spot where the bodies were found, it means someone drove the family to the border and then left the scene.
“We know the Patel family moved around Canada for a period of time and we are looking for anyone that may have had encounters with them,” the RCMP said.
This news website was the first to identify the family and confrim that it belonged to Dingucha village in Kalol taluka of Gujarat. Dingucha is a Patel-dominated village of about 3,000 population just a few kilometres from the state capital of Gandhinagar. Jagdish Patel, who owned some land and also taught at a school, reportedly paid Rs 65-70 lakh to an `agent’ to take his family to the US via Canada.
The four were part of a large group of people being smuggled into the US from Canada as part of a wider human smuggling operation. All people of this group stayed in Winnipeg before their attempt to enter the US, according to the sources.
It looks like the whole group belonged to the same village as reports from Gujarat quoted a resident of Dingucha village as saying that persons belonging to three-four more families from the village were missing.
The four deceased walked with the large group for over 11 hours to the US-Canada border. They died after getting separated from the group during the night in -35 degrees temperatures.
Their bodies were located about 12 metres inside Canada from the US-Canada border, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
The RCMP started search operations on the Canadian side of the border after they were told by US Customs and Border Protection officers about the arrest of a group of people who had crossed into the US from Canada. The US agents told the RCMP that they have stopped a 15-passenger van about one kilometre from the international border and found two undocumented Indian nationals (Gujaratis) in it.
The van’s 47-year-old driver Steve Shand of Florida was arrested and charged with human smuggling. He was later released on many conditions by a courtin in Minnesota.
At the same time, five more Indians – all Gujarati speaking – were arrested not far from where the van was stopped by the US border agents.
Among the five, a man and a woman suffered frostbites and were taken to hospital. Because of her severe frostbite, the woman was airlifted to another hospital.
The seven were identified as Mahesh Bhai Vadilal Patel, Varshil Pankaj Bhai Dhobhi, Arpit Kumar Ramesh Patel, Prince Kumar Jayanti Bhai Patel, Sujit Kumar Alpesh Patel, Yash Darshath Bhai Patel and Priyanka Kanti Bhai Chaudhary.
All seven were found wearing same kind of clothes – black winter coats with fur-trimmed hoods, black gloves, black balaclavas and insulated rubber boots – provided by the human smuggler Steve Shand, say documents filed against Steve Shane in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
They told investigators that they walked across the border from Canada to the US as they were to be picked up by someone. One of them revealed that he fraudulently got a student visa from India to come to Canada and then enter the US.
With his 15-seat van loaded with privisions, Shand was waiting on the American side of the border to pick up the 11 Indian Gujaratis coming illegally from Canada. However, the blizzardy weather blew the cover off this human smuggling operation.
US authorities believe Shand is part of a wider human smuggling network as three incidents of human smuggling — on December 12, December 22, 2021 and January 12 — were reported from the same area where he was arrested.
The RCMP statement after the autopsies on January 26 also confirmed that the Indian family was brought to Canada by human smugglers.
During the investigation, the RCMP said, it “has been working closely with its liaison officers in New Delhi, India and Washington, D.C., and have been in regular contact with Indian consular officials.”
Meanwhile, in Gujarat the police have arrested six persons in connection with human trafficking.
“We are now trying to nab the human traffickers who managed to send this (Patel) family and others abroad via illegal channels,” news agencies quoted Gandhinagar police official A K Jhala as saying.
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