GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been campaigning extensively in Gujarat for the assembly election, will address 14 rallies between November 27 and December 2, party sources said on Friday. The PM will arrive in Gujarat on Sunday, November 27, and address three rallies at Kheda, Netrang and Surat during the day. He will spend the night at the Surat circuit house and hold four more rallies on November 28, at Palitana, Anjar, Jamnagar and Rajkot, before returning to Delhi, party leaders said. The PM will arrive in Gujarat again on December 1 and address election rallies at Kalol in Panchmahal district, Chhota Udepur and Himmatnagar on December 1. After spending the night at Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar, he will address four election rallies at Deodar, Patan, Sojitra and Ahmedabad. "The PM will be addressing his first rally in Ahmedabad city after the election dates were announced and the party has asked the leadership to include a road show before the PM's Ahmedabad rally, a senior leader said. Gujarat will vote in two phases, on December 1 and 5. Votes will be counted on December 8.
GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been campaigning extensively in Gujarat for the assembly election, will address 14 rallies between November 27 and December 2, party sources said on Friday. The PM will arrive in Gujarat on Sunday, November 27, and address three rallies at Kheda, Netrang and Surat during the day. He will spend the night at the Surat circuit house and hold four more rallies on November 28, at Palitana, Anjar, Jamnagar and Rajkot, before returning to Delhi, party leaders said. The PM will arrive in Gujarat again on December 1 and address election rallies at Kalol in Panchmahal district, Chhota Udepur and Himmatnagar on December 1. After spending the night at Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar, he will address four election rallies at Deodar, Patan, Sojitra and Ahmedabad. "The PM will be addressing his first rally in Ahmedabad city after the election dates were announced and the party has asked the leadership to include a road show before the PM's Ahmedabad rally, a senior leader said. Gujarat will vote in two phases, on December 1 and 5. Votes will be counted on December 8.
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."
