Nagpur’s dream chaser doomed at US-Mexico border, lives to recall his 62-day horror

NAGPUR: A dream of a better life pushed a 33-year-old man from Nagpur’s Teka Naka area, Harpreet Singh Laliya alias Roshan, to the doorstep of death. He survived by a whisker and lived to tell his 62-day hellish roller-coaster ride to the US-Mexico border and his deportation to India in an American military aircraft.
Roshan, who wanted to earn Rs 4 lakh per month as a cabbie in Canada, lost almost Rs 50 lakh, which he mopped up by selling family gold, his two trucks, and procuring loans from banks. Talking to TOI in Nagpur, Roshan recounts his near-death experience.
After landing in Amritsar with around 104 others in handcuffs, Roshan was flown to Nagpur on Thursday and escorted home by Pachpaoli police.
Before spending two weeks at an American jail, Roshan witnessed how a fellow immigrant was shot dead by the trafficking mafia as he had no money left to give. He remained in hiding in three continents, bribed his way through multiple national borders, walked for hours on hilly forested terrain, crossed barbed wires while starving and gasping, and cheating death on numerous occasions in his tumultuous journey.
A transporter and father of two daughters, Roshan approached an immigration agent from his mother’s native village in Gurdaspur to migrate to Canada. They initially decided on a Rs 18lakh fee to prepare a ‘profile’ for a tourist visa, with a promise that it would be converted to a work permit once he reached the country.
On December 5, Roshan flew to Abu Dhabi, from where he was scheduled to fly to Montreal in Canada. At Abu Dhabi airport, Roshan was told by Etihad Airlines officials that he would be flown back to Delhi, as per instructions of the Indian embassy. The following day, Roshan reached Delhi. The agent told him not to approach the embassy, or he would forfeit his money. Roshan was made to wait for a week before being asked to fly to Mumbai and handed over a ticket to Cairo. He was accompanied by many others from different parts of India, especially Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and other places. He was soon joined by Bangladeshis, Nepalese, and Pakistanis on international flights.
From Egypt, Roshan was flown to Madrid in Spain and was directed to lie low for four days, after which he was flown to Guatemala on December 26 and then to Nicaragua, where immigration agents took him to Honduras. “At Nicaragua, we had to insert dollars inside the passport and hand it over to cops at the check post. Local agents had by then already handed us over to other middlemen, who kept changing,” said Roshan, adding that the human smuggling mafia were hand in glove with govt officials. “Police handed us over to the mafia at some places and we were herded from one hideout to another,” said Roshan, still reeling under trauma.
“At Honduras, we got a visa to cross the US border. In four buses, around 150 immigrants like me were brought back to Guatemala after a 24-hour journey. We were guarded by armed men. Each one of us was kept at different hideouts in Guatemala. I had to shell out $1,400 Canadian to the mafia, while my Mexican agent coughed up another $1,500 to release me and my documents,” said Roshan.
He along with others were taken in a car to a place called Tapachula in Mexico, from where they were made to cross a river in wobbly boats. “We were shocked to see the mafia and Mexican cops hobnobbing with each other,” said Roshan.
Between December-end and first week of January this year, Roshan and others kept shunting from one city in Mexico to another till they reached Tabasco.
“From there, we were ferried to Mexico City in covered pick-up vans. We travelled in inhuman conditions for 24 hours and then dumped in a big warehouse. In the first week of January, Mexico police left us at the mercy of the local mafia,” said Roshan, adding they were later taken to a place called Hermosillo and then to Puerto Penasco after paying a bribe of $1,800.
"Only 24 of us could make it to Puerto Penasco. Others were held back as they did not have bribe money. Some may have died or been killed. We were given only rice with raw onions,” he said.
“We later had to walk for five hours through forests and hills in Mexico to reach the barbed zero-line border of the US. It was another 16-hour trek into American territory after crossing the border. We also had a family of four from Gujarat who had two daughters,” said Roshan.
“We later fell into the hands of the American police, who took us to San Diego prisons on January 22. We were handcuffed and kept like terrorists for four days. Chips, apples, and juice were all we got. It was a 12-day ordeal in jail. The entire group was told that we were released, but were taken to San Antonio, from where we were flown back to India,” said Roshan, adding no one should choose agents without verifying their background.
“If we had not made the payments, we would have thought of returning home, instead of risking our lives for so many days, and that too in the hands of a ruthless mafia and a corrupt system,” said Roshan.