AHMEDABAD:
US authorities
have arrested from Chicago
Harshkumar Patel
alias "
Dirty Harry
", a key accused in Gujarat's Dingucha human smuggling case in which four of a family froze to death in Jan 2022 while trying to enter US illegally from Canada.
According to Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) News' Fifth Estate segment, Harshkumar was held at Chicago airport.
The deaths of Jagdish Patel, 39, wife Vaishali, 37, daughter Vihangi, 11, and son Dharmik, 3, had shaken Gujarati community in Canada and US. The family was from Dingucha, near Gandhinagar.
Harshkumar was allegedly in contact with Steve Shand, a van apprehended by US authorities on the fateful night of Jan 19, 2022. Shand has been accused of smuggling seven persons from Gujarat illegally, including the four who perished near the US border.
Investigators have found WhatsApp exchanges between Harshkumar and Shand along with financial transactions. The arrest and the evidence are seen as important headways into uncovering the US leg of the international human smuggling racket from Gujarat involving those desperate to chase their deadly US dreams.
Earlier, the authorities had highlighted the roles of the likes of Fenil Patel in Canada and Bittu Singh alias Paji in the US in the same case.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled on Feb 28, but CBC report mentions that it could be transferred to Minnesota. Shand's jury trial is also set to begin in Minnesota in March. Harshkumar also goes by the aliases of Harry Patel, Param Singh, Haresh Patel and Hareshkumar Singh Patel.
Minnesota court documents indicate that Harshkumar had provided Shand the route map for the illegal migrants who were to be brought from the Canada-US border - from between Emerson, Winnipeg, in Canada and Pembina, North Dakota, in the US.
The documents also indicate that Shand was involved in a total of five such cases between Dec 2021 and Jan 2022 at the behest of Harshkumar.
English (US) ·