Family Of 4 Indians Who Perished In Blizzard At Canada-US Border Identified, Autopsies Completed

Toronto, Jan 28 :The Indian family of four that perished in a blizzard while attempting to illegally cross the Canada-US border last week has been identified as a father, mother, daughter and son. Their autopsies have been completed by the Canadian authorities. The Indian High Commission in Ottawa identified the four as Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben Jagdishkumar Patel, 37; their daughter, Vihangi Jagdishkumar Patel, 11; and their son, Dharmik Jagdishkumar Patel, 3.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is looking for members of a suspected human smuggling ring who helped a family from India get from Toronto airport to a remote border area of Manitoba shortly before freezing to death during an attempt to illegally cross into the United States during a blizzard. The cause of death, exposure to cold, was formally confirmed on Thursday, as police announced a far-reaching investigation into human smuggling and the family’s movements in Canada.

The autopsies were completed on Wednesday and the RCMP informed Indian officials who notified the Patel’s family in India. Passports of the Patel family were found with their bodies, police said. The conditions during the prairie blizzard on January 19 night, when they perished, were extremely dangerous. The temperature hovered around -35C with blowing snow and bleak darkness along a remote route they were unfamiliar with. While seven Indians made it to safety after more than 11 hours of walking, the Patel family, however, got separated from the group in the night and didn’t even make it out of Canada.

Their bodies were found about 12 metres inside the border. Diplomats for India in Toronto are in contact with the family of the Patels. “The High Commission offers its sincere condolences to the family and friends of the victims,” said Chellappan Gurusubramanian, First Secretary at the High Commission of India in Ottawa, in a written statement. A diplomatic team from the Indian government, led by a senior consular officer based in Toronto, is in Manitoba to assist the investigation and to render any consular services for the victims, Gurusubramanian said.

He said Canadian and Indian officials need to have wider and longer-term discussions on migration issues, “to ensure that migration and mobility are made safe and legal and that such tragedies do not recur.” Most of the Indian migrants wore identical winter clothing, including matching coats, boots, gloves and ski masks, according to U.S. authorities. Manitoba RCMP Chief Supt. Rob Hill said the family arrived in Canada at Toronto by air on January 12 and then travelled to Manitoba. They arrived in Emerson, near the US border, shortly before their fateful trek. “There was no abandoned vehicle located on the Canadian side of the border. This indicates that someone drove the family to the border and then left the scene,” Hill said. The RCMP is trying to trace “every aspect of their travel” from Toronto on January 12, to Emerson, Manitoba, on January 18 and asked the public to help.

“We need anyone who had interaction with the Patel family or has information about their journey to the border to think about what they went through and step forward,” he said. The authorities have asked hotel workers, restaurant staff, store clerks and customers, gas station attendants, taxi drivers — anyone who may have seen them — to contact police. “We believe this to be a case of human smuggling,” he said. Investigators are working with American and Indian officials, as well as RCMP liaison officers in New Delhi and Washington, D.C. “We are determined to find out how this tragedy occurred,” he said, estimating the probe would take “months and months.”

Relatives of the Patels knew they left for Canada and had not heard from them since, a relative was quoted as saying in media. A large virtual prayer service was already held for the Patels on Monday by more than 100 ex-pats from Gujarat in Canada. Hill apologized for the RCMP initially misidentifying one of the child victims as a boy in his mid-teens. He said the bodies were found in a frozen state and their clothing led to the mistake. The Patel family comprised both the two oldest and two youngest members of a group of 11 Indians who were dropped off near Emerson, Manitoba, on January 18, for the organized illegal crossing, according to U.S. officials.

The other seven are in their late teens and early 20s, said Chief Patrol Agent Anthony S. Good, of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Grand Forks Sector, whose officers rescued them in blizzard conditions on January 19. The group was wandering aimlessly when agents spotted them in a search, after a driver, allegedly in the area to pick them up, was arrested. “They were walking, but it was hard to see anything. They were a little bit disoriented and didn’t really know which way to go. They didn’t think the trek would be that arduous.

” Two of the migrants who made it needed medical assistance. One, a woman, was taken by helicopter to hospital but has survived. They were all turned over to immigration officials. The rest of the group told U.S. officials of “a similar travel agenda” to the Patel family, as described by Indian media, Good said. Steve Shand, 47, of Deltona, Florida, was arrested in the morning on January 19, on the U.S. side of the border, hours before the frozen bodies were found. He was driving a van with two undocumented Indian nationals inside. Five other Indian citizens were found walking nearby.

Shand is facing federal human smuggling charges in Minnesota. On Monday, Shand was granted release from jail until his trial. The seven migrants arrested in the United States were turned over to immigration and are being processed for removal, although some may be eligible for visas if they cooperate in Shand’s prosecution, said Veena Iyer, executive director of the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota, media reported. Relatives and neighbours of the Patels said the family left for Canada on a visitor’s visa about a week before the migrants were found. The family is said to have paid the equivalent of about $1,000 to an immigration agent to get them to the United States.

It seems a twice-monthly cross-border operation for Indian nationals, with someone dropping the migrants off on the Canadian side with winter clothing and sending them south, where someone is expected to pick them up. The Border Patrol said officers are aware of three earlier smuggling incidents in the same area. Footprints in the snow made by the same make of boots worn by the rescued migrants were discovered by border officers on December 12 and 22, last year and on January 12. After the December 12 incident, U.S. officers spoke with RCMP officers and were told that Canadian authorities found a backpack at what appeared to be a drop-off point inside Canada. A tag inside showed a price in the Indian currency of rupees.