Year on, no clue about youth who ‘went to US’

Pathankot-based MBA student Jagmeet Singh has become synonymous with all that is wrong with illegal migration in Majha.

Here a hideous system is at work where scores of fly-by-night travel agents mint money by promising to send gullible, starry-eyed youngsters to the US on legal documents. The catch is that these agents do not tell them that they would actually be forced to trek through the treacherous rainforests of Panama, considered to be one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world, if they have to reach the US.

Almost a year has elapsed ever since Joginder Singh, a retired revenue official, living off just three acres he has in his possession, received a call from his son who was stranded “somewhere in the jungles of Panama”. The distraught parents have contacted all those whom matter, including the Indian Embassy in Columbia, but still, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Police officers admit the latest backdoor route for Punjabi boys to enter the US is through the Darien Gap, a 100-km-long swamp comprising marshlands and mountains on the Columbia-Panama border. According to the people who have used this route, migrants are forced to trek for days without eating anything. This is because carrying eatables add to the weight they are already carrying, thereby restricting their movement.

On November 26 last year, the day Jagmeet left Pathankot for New Delhi airport, his father stuffed $5,000 into his pocket.

Earlier, Joginder had paid Parminder Singh, a Qadian-based travel agent, Rs 45 lakh. This was to ensure his son legally entered the US.

The agent promised that Jagmeet would be sent to the US with legal documents. Instead, he was sent to Guyana where his troubles began.

From Guyana, Jagmeet reached Necocli, a town on the Columbia-Panama border.

In the last week of December last year, Joginder received a call from his son. The hysterical son told his father that he was “somewhere in Panama.” He also sent his location after which he became incommunicado.

The police say the location he had sent turned out to be the Darien Gap jungles.

During his conversation, Jagmeet came out with a frightening piece of statistics. He said he had met a group of 300-400 Indian-origin boys, a majority of them Punjabis, in Necocli. “All of them are on their way to the US,” Jagmeet told his father. This was the last chat the father and son had.

The Pathankot police have registered a case against agent Parminder Singh and his wife.

Boys who have reached the US after traveling through the Darien Gap say a week’s time is the break-even point. “Thereafter, sickness sets in the body of even the sturdiest and strongest of young men. Strength slowly oozes out of the body and not many survive the ordeal,” they maintain.

The reason attributed to this exodus is the falling income of Punjabi households and the all-pervasive drug crisis. Youngsters like Jagmeet who belong to marginal farming families are unable to get jobs and hence opt for a better life abroad.

SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon says the police are doing everything to ensure the boy returns home.