Gujarat Police have arrested two people for human trafficking, almost two months after an Indian national died while attempting to enter the United States illegally from Mexico.
A complaint has been filed against seven people, one from Ahmedabad and the others from Gandhinagar, and two of them have been arrested, according to a police statement issued on Saturday.
“These seven persons, to extract money from Brijkumar Yadav and his family, tried to send him, his wife Puja and his son Tanmay illegally to the US. They had not informed him about the risks involved in entering the US in such a way,” it stated.
According to the announcement, the Yadavs were brought to Mumbai on November 11, 2022, flown to Istanbul, and then conveyed to Mexico.
On December 21, 2022, Yadav died while attempting to enter the United States by scaling the border wall between the United States and Mexico, often known as the Trump Wall. His wife and a three-year-old boy were critically injured in the tragedy.
Yadav and his family were from Uttar Pradesh and lived in the Gandhinagar district’s Kalol taluka. According to reports in the American media, all three family members fell from a high place. Yadav’s wife fell on the US side of the wall, while their son landed on the Mexican side.
The Trump wall death case, in which Kalol resident Brijkumar Yadav died while scaling a wall on the Mexico-US border, has hit another snag: the deceased’s wife, Pooja Yadav, who was under the supervision of a US agency, has gone incommunicado.
When the Yadav family chose to illegally cross the border from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego on the night of December 14, they were in for a terrible catastrophe. Brijkumar Yadav fell onto the Mexican side of Tijuana with his son while his wife Pooja fell 30 feet onto the US side in San Diego.
Following Yadav’s death, a case of human trafficking was filed at the Kalol taluka police station.
According to a USCBP officer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement received custody of the minor child and then, in accordance with policy, transferred him to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Pooja received medical attention for her wounds before being released, but she was under USCBP surveillance and was obliged to attend the immigration court sessions.
“We have been trying to contact her constantly, but her phone was switched off. If we are able to talk to her, then we will be able to know who had sent Brijkumar and his family to the US and what job he was promised,” according to a State Monitoring Cell (SMC) investigator looking into the case.
After Brijkumar’s death, the SMC officer claimed that even Brijkumar’s family members were unable to get in touch with Pooja and her three-year-old child.
Curiously, Brijkumar Yadav’s family members also declined to bring his body to India for unknown reasons, the officer noted.
Sahil Vyas of Paliyad village in Kalol and Saurabh Patel of Kalol city were apprehended by the SMC on Friday in connection with a case of culpable homicide and people trafficking.
According to another SMC officer, “These two individuals were small offenders who worked for a human smuggler based in Ahmedabad. This particular smuggler and three others from Gandhinagar are on the run in the case”.
“Pooja Yadav is the key witness in the case and only she can tell us how and why they were sent to the US. Other family members of Brijkumar Yadav are tightlipped about the tragedy,” he added.
In the illegal immigration scam involving notorious agents, particularly from Ahmedabad, Mehsana, and Gandhinagar, more damning evidence is coming to light. The names of two covert operatives, Ketul Patel and Hardik Patel, who attracted overseas applicants, have come to light during the interrogation of the accused Sahil Vyas and Saurabh Patel.
The two are based in Ahmedabad and had close ties to a number of motel operators that used illegal immigrants as cheap labour in the US.
Brijkumar Yadav of Chhatral, who fell and died while scaling the “Trump Wall” on the Mexico side of the US-Mexico border, had fake visas arranged for him, according to a top police official with knowledge of the investigations. Ketul Patel and Hardik Patel were also involved.
In January 2022, four members of a family from Dingucha village in Kalol tehsil died on the US-Canada border succumbing to the harsh weather while attempting to enter the US illegally.
In March 2022, US border patrol apprehended six Gujarati youths after their boat capsized in the Saint Regis River near the Canadian border. Authorities alleged they were attempting to enter the United States illegally.
