Ahmedabad: When it comes to eliminating the competition, agents Bharat alias Bobby Patel and Guramrit alias Pablo Singh will allegedly do anything to ensure they rule the illegal immigration business. Investigators probing human smuggling rackets in Gujarat revealed that the two men not only get other illegal agents and their clients arrested and thrown in jail, but also shoot videos of their torture and share them online as a warning to anyone else who tries to muscle in on their ‘dhandho’.Gujarat police officers told TOI that they have received video evidence showing Bobby and Pablo’s goons subjecting the clients of other agents to inhuman treatment. Usually, people from Punjab and Gujarat harbour dreams of settling in the US and Canada and are ready to do anything to fulfil this desire. “Cashing on this, Bobby from Dingucha village in Gandhinagar district of Gujarat and Pablo from Jalandhar in Punjab have set up a major migrant smuggling network that spreads from India to the US through Turkey and Mexico,” said a senior police officer.He added, “They take care of rival agents by tipping off the police, usually in Delhi, about the competitors as well as their clients. A man from Kalol had used one of their rivals to leave the country illegally last October. However, they tipped off the Delhi police who arrested the man under human smuggling charges. The man was sent to Tihar jail where Pablo’s men were present. We have a video showing the goons thrashing the Kalol resident and making him clean human excreta using his hands,” said the police officer, privy to the development.Revealing more about the nexus, a senior Gujarat police officer said, “Bobby went to the US and began smuggling migrants in 1997. He has been booked under many human trafficking cases including one in Kolkata, six in Delhi and one in Mumbai. Around two years ago, he met Pablo, who had shifted his base to Rajouri Garden area in Delhi and built a rapport with him. Pablo, who also oversees the human smuggling network run by agent Charanjeet Singh, extended his protection and help to Bobby.” The cops firmly believe that the Dingucha kingpin and Pablo were responsible for sending the family of Jagdish Patel from the Gandhinagar village on an illegal journey during which they froze to death on January 16.
Ahmedabad: Bharat Patel alias Bobby Patel, one of the most notorious illegal immigration agents from Gujarat, has a good 28 passports! What’s more shocking is that, according to investigators probing human smuggling rings here, all 28 of them – some even containing his biometric information – were legally issued to Bharat alias Bobby Patel. The Dingucha resident, who started off doing odd jobs in the village, is now under scanner for running a major migrant smuggling racket that spreads from India to the US through Turkey and Mexico. An officer from the Gujarat police, privy to the development, said, “Bharat changed minor details and got multiple passports issued at different times through passport offices in the western parts of the country including Mumbai and Ahmedabad.” TOI learnt that the 47-year-old’s first passport was issued by the Ahmedabad regional passport office in 1997. “It contained his original name, date of birth, and address. He visited the US twice that year to expand his illegal immigration ring. The second time he went, he smuggled in two young children but got caught. He was booked for human smuggling and under provisions of the Alien Act. A US court banned him from entering the country for 99 years and deported him to India,” the officer revealed, adding: “In 2002, he got another passport. Since travelling on just one passport might have proved problematic, he kept getting new passports by changing a couple of details like the name, the surname, date of birth or address.” The police officer said that he got a passport issued in the name of Kamal Shah from Mumbai in 2004. The date of birth in the passport was changed too, the cop added. The officer told TOI that Bharat obtained seven passports from Ahmedabad and Mumbai passport offices. “He got 21 more passports from other parts of the country. In all the passports, his photograph was the same. In the past four years, he made four new passports in which his fingerprints and other biometric details including his retinal impressions were taken. Using these passports, he has been travelling in and out of the country and the authorities have no clue. We found this information through immigration officials while investigating the migrant smuggling rings,” the officer said. In the meantime, his parents, wife and two children settled in the US and became American citizens. The police said that his accomplices, Yogesh Sathwara, Bhrugesh Patel, and Rajesh Patel also have 5-10 passports. The ‘Dingucha kingpin’ is not only suspected of having sent four of a Patel family from the Gandhinagar village who froze to death near the Canadian border in January on their illegal journey to the US, but also of having helped 1,500 people from North Gujarat obtain fake passports. “We also suspect Bharat Patel of having sent six people from North Gujarat to the US recently. However, their boat capsized while crossing the St Regis river on the Canada-US border. The US border and customs police fortunately along with other agencies rescued the illegal immigrants. They will now be facing a legal case in the US,” said a senior police officer. The Gujarat police and state agencies began cracking down on human smuggling rackets after Canadian police found Jagdish Patel, 35, his wife, Vaishali, 33, and their children Vihanga, 12, and Dharmik, 3, frozen to death in an empty field on January 19. They had died just 12 metres from the US border. Their deaths renewed the focus on smugglers and the life-threatening methods they employ to help migrants cross into the US illegally. Since then, the police have busted eight such agents, and several more are under the scanner.
Ahmedabad: Dingucha – a small village a few kilometres from Kalol district in Gandhinagar – hit the headlines in January after a family of four froze to death while trying to illegally enter the US through the Canadian border. While the news shook the world, it has hardly acted as a deterrent for people from Gujarat approaching smugglers who employ life-threatening methods to help them cross into the US illegally. According to the latest information received from state and central agencies probing illegal immigration rackets in the state, about 4,900 people from Mehsana, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad districts have embarked on illegal journeys to the US after the Dingucha incident. Senior police officers, who are investigating the cases of human smuggling in the state, suspect the agents, already under scanner in the earlier cases, of being involved in the latest cases too. “One of the main human smugglers from the state is Bharat alias Bobby Patel. He operates the illegal routes with help from Brugesh Patel, Rajesh Patel, and Yogesh Sathwara – who hail from Kalol or Mehsana. They have been sending people to the US illegally through Mexico and Turkey for almost a decade now. They were the ones involved in sending Jagdish Patel, his wife and kids from Dingucha to Canada, where they died just a few metres away from the US border while attempting to walk into the land of their dreams during a blinding blizzard,” said a senior officer of the Gujarat police. TOI has learnt that the Gujarat police were tracking Guramritpal alias Pablo Singh from Jalandhar in Punjab, an accomplice of Bharat Patel, when they found information that, since the Dingucha deaths, 4,869 people from Gujarat’s three districts were sent to the US illegally. Sources in the Gujarat police said that Singh and Bharat Patel “have been involved in the human smuggling business for some years now”. A senior cop said, “We also suspect Bharat Patel of having sent six people from North Gujarat to the US recently. However, their boat capsized while crossing the St Regis river on the Canada-US border. The illegal immigrants were fortunately rescued by the US border and customs police along with other agencies. They will now be facing a legal case in the US.”
Ahmedabad: Dingucha – a village a few kilometres from Kalol district in Gandhinagar – hit headlines in January after a family of four froze to death while trying to illegally enter the US through the Canadian border. While the news shook the world, it hardly acted as a deterrent for people from Gujarat approaching smugglers who employ life-threatening methods to help them cross into the US illegally.According to information received from state and central agencies probing illegal immigration rackets in the state, about 4,900 people from Mehsana, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad districts have embarked on illegal journeys to US after the Dingucha incident.Senior police officers, who are investigating the cases of human smuggling, suspect the agents, already under scanner in the earlier cases, of being involved in the latest cases too."One of the main human smugglers is Bharat alias Bobby Patel. He operates illegal routes with help from Brugesh Patel, Rajesh Patel, and Yogesh Sathwara – who hail from Kalol or Mehsana. They have been sending people to the US illegally through Mexico and Turkey for almost a decade. They were the ones involved in sending Jagdish Patel, his wife and kids from Dingucha to Canada, where they died a few metres away from the US border while attempting to walk into the land of their dreams during a blinding blizzard," said a senior officer of the Gujarat police.TOI has learnt that the Gujarat police were tracking Guramritpal alias Pablo Singh from Jalandhar in Punjab, an accomplice of Bharat Patel, when they found information that, since the Dingucha deaths, 4,869 people from Gujarat's three districts were sent to the US illegally.Sources in the Gujarat police said that Singh and Bharat Patel "have been involved in the human smuggling business for some years now".A senior cop said, "We also suspect Bharat Patel of having sent six people from North Gujarat to the US recently. However, their boat capsized while crossing the St Regis river on the Canada-US border. The illegal immigrants were fortunately rescued by the US border and customs police along with other agencies. They will now be facing a legal case in the US."
The Gandhinagar Special Operations Group (SOG has nabbed an accused in the killing of a minor girl in Kalol from Bhayander in Mumbai.A complaint of abduction and molestation was filed at Kalol taluka police station in 2021. SOG, Gandhinagar was tasked with the responsibility of finding the culprit by Range IG Abhay Chudasama and Gandhinagar IG Mayur Chavda.The body of the minor girl was found and evidence pointed towards the boyfriend of the minor girl having killed her.Investigation showed that Jay Chauhan alias Jaykishan alias Jackie, a resident of Auda house, Dastan Circle in Naroda, had come in contact with the minor girl through a friend of his wife. They had fallen in love. But later the girl had started demanding money from him and threatened to make photos of their intimate moments viral on social media if he did not pay up.Jay had with the help of his friend Majoj Jaiswal, a resident of Vasai in Nalasopara East had lured the minor to the Narmada canal in Kadi in a car and then pushed her into the canal.Jay later bought a SIM card in the minor’s name and kept sending messages on socialcmedia to create an illusion that she was alive.Jay operated a mobile shop in Mumbai earlier and had been arrested for offences registered under the Arms Act, honey trap cases and bootlegging. Being a hardened criminal Jay had escaped the police many times in the past.When the police was looking for him, it was learnt that he had visited his elder sister’s place in Bhayander in Mumbai. A team was constituted to keep a watch there. The help of Bhayander East police was also sought and he was caught.
Ahmedabad: In a cold-blooded case of murder reported from Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, a 21-year-old man allegedly kidnapped and murdered his wife’s eight-year-old brother in a fit of rage after a fight with her. He later disposed of the child’s body in a canal near Changodar.The accused, identified as Sohail Shaikh (21), has been arrested by the Danilimda Police for killing his minor brother-in-law Riyan. As per the police, on January 24, Riyan went to attend tuition classes but did not come back, following which his mother Batul Shaikh reached the teacher’s place to inquire about him. Later, the family lodged a kidnapping complaint with the police and started putting up missing person posters to find the child.According to the police, during investigation, a man mentioned that he had spotted Sohail taking the child somewhere in an autorickshaw. While Sohail was being questioned on Friday morning, the police received information that a body was found in Fatehwadi canal. The deceased was later identified as Riyan, who had gone missing. Subsequently, Sohail confessed that he committed the crime, a report by The Times of India stated.Sohail got married to Riyan’s sister Zara alias Nazo three years ago. The couple recently had a fight, following which Sohail decided to teach a lesson to Zara who loved her brother very much. He killed the child when the family started putting up missing person posters, as he felt that he would be caught. He even believed that the police would not be able to determine that it was Riyan’s body. In another incident, a 31-year-old man allegedly hacked his 27-year-old wife to death with a shaving blade at their residence in Ahmedabad, as he suspected her of having an extramarital affair. After the crime, the police arrested the accused, identified as Junaidkhan Pathan of Vatva.
Ahmedabad: Danilimda police arrested a 21-year-old man, Sohail Shaikh, who allegedly kidnapped his six-year-old brother-in-law, Riyan, and murdered him. Sohail had a major fight with his wife after which he killed Riyan in a fit of rage.According to Danilimda police, Sohail killed Riyan and disposed of his body in a canal near Changodar. Police said a complaint for kidnapping was registered at Danilimda police station on Tuesday. The police have now added charges of murder and causing the disappearance of evidence.Police said the complainant, Batul Shaikh, Riyan’s mother, stated that on January 24, Riyan left for his tuitions and when he did not return till 8pm they went to inquire at the teacher’s place. The teacher told them that Riyan had not come for tuitions. The family then lodged a complaint for kidnapping.The search for Riyan was intensified and the family began pasting posters of him as being missing. Cops said during their investigation, a 27-year-old man, Vijay Parmar, said he had seen Riyan being driven somewhere in a rickshaw. He said Sohail had taken Riyan in his rickshaw.When they were interrogating Sohail on Friday morning, police were informed of a body in the Fatehwadi canal. The cops later learned that the body was Riyan’s. Sohail later confessed to committing the crime.Cops said Sohail married Zara alias Nazo, Riyan’s sister, three years ago. The couple had fights recently and Sohail decided to teach Zara a lesson. She loved her brother Riyan dearly.Cops said that when the family began pasting posters, Sohail thought he would be caught and decided to kill Riyan and disposed of his body in the canal. Cops said he was under the impression that the cops would be unable to establish that the body was Riyan’s.
