CHANDIGARH: About 40 youths from Punjab – among the 102 from India who left for the US via ‘dunky route’ in 2010 – have been missing for the last 15 years.
Ravinder Singh, son of Daljit Singh of Taprian village in Fategarh Sahib district, went to the US on September 15, 2010, and the family has no clue about him till now.
“My elder son, who had done Class XII, was a driver and wanted to go abroad for a livelihood. We got in touch with travel agents based in Panchkula and the deal was settled for Rs 20 lakh. We paid them Rs 5 lakh as advance and we were told that our son along with others will be directly taken to Mexico and then they will enter the US. But they were flown to Managua from Delhi and received by another agent. Again we paid them Rs 5 lakh as demanded,’’ Singh told this newspaper.
“After 10 days we came to know that he and others had reached Guatemala city. These agents asked for remaining Rs 10 lakh and we paid them Rs 7 lakh. We were then told that once our son reached the US, they would call us back. But he has not spoken to us till date,’’ said Singh whose other son Jaswinder Singh is in Spain.
“We have lost all hope. The CBI is investigating the case; they took our blood samples last month and also Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials questioned us a couple of times. We hope that the CBI might be able to find some clue about our children,” he said, adding that police did not register an FIR despite giving a complaint against the agents.
Sukhpreet Grewal, the advocate of these families whose children have gone missing, said the case was disposed of by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2023 and the CBI had registered the case.
“A total of 102 youths from the country went to the US in 2010 via ‘dunky route’; 42 from Punjab never reached their destination and nobody knows the last time they contacted their families. The CBI is investigating this case,”’ Grewal said.
“Jaswant Singh, father of Varinder Singh, filed a petition in 2010, on which an FIR was registered after High Court intervention. Anticipatory bails of the accused were dismissed but instead of arresting them, Punjab police filed a cancellation report. After that Singh filed another petition in 2013, which was decided by the HC in 2023. During the hearing of the petition, the fact that more than 100 youths were missing was brought to the knowledge of the HC. Three more families also filed petitions. After that investigation was handed over to CBI,’’ the advocate said.
“It was on January 2, 2012 that the customs officials at the Indira Gandhi Intentional Airport seized a bag containing 102 passports but no case was registered and some passports were of these missing youth,’’ she said. It is suspected that from Delhi the agents took them to Doha but it is not confirmed as no immigration record of their entry was available there, she added.
Another family now settled in Canada, whose son Harsimranjit Singh Dhaliwal had gone missing then, has approached Grewal.
“This family is in touch with more than eight families whose children were missing since then. Dhaliwal’s sister went to the US to locate her brother and wrote multiple emails to US authorities as well as CBI. She also came to India and met officials of the NRI wing of Punjab police, besides CBI officials,” said Grewal.