
Two Sentenced In US For Human Smuggling That Killed Four Indians, Including Children
The US Department of Justice on Thursday said that two men have been sentenced in the District of Minnesota. The arrest comes after they were convicted in a case related to an international human smuggling conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of four Indian nationals, including a three-year-old and an 11-year-old child, in January 2022.
According to the Office of Public Affairs, one of the arrested has been identified as 29-year-old Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel. He is an Indian national formerly residing in Florida and was sentenced to 10 years and one month in federal prison by a district court in Minnesota. He will now be removed from the United States following his sentence.

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Time of India
32 minutes ago
- Time of India
UK: Three British Hindus beaten up in London park in racially motivated attack
This is an AI-generated image, used for representational purposes only LONDON: Three British Hindu men were asked their ethnicity in a London park and, when they replied they were Indian and Sri Lankan, were viciously beaten up in an unprovoked attack by three older men who appeared to be Muslim, it has emerged. Two of the men suffered blows to the head and were left unconscious; all had to go to Northwick Park Hospital. They have all been left with cuts and bruises and two have been left with facial fractures. Tory MP Bob Blackman raised the case in the House of Commons on Thursday, describing it as 'religious hatred.' TOI has now tracked down the sister of one of the men, a British Indian Gujarati Hindu, aged 20, a first-year university student studying radiography. It turns out he had gone to Harrow Recreation Ground with two friends on May 30 to play cricket. The friends are British Hindus of Sri Lankan descent, aged 20 and 21. The three of them went to a shop at 6 pm, walking past a café where a group of around eight people were seated. It appeared to be a Muslim family, with some of the women wearing hijabs. They looked back at their other friends playing cricket when one of the men outside the café got up and confronted the three Hindus and asked them why they were looking at his family, his sister told TOI. They replied that they were not looking at his family and were looking at friends playing cricket. Then a slightly older man from the café group came over and asked: 'What is your problem? Why are you talking to my brother?' The three men tried to defuse the situation and the two men seemed to accept their answer. They went back to the park and sat on a bench. Around 30 minutes later, three men from the cafe group, in their mid to late 20s, came over and became very aggressive, asking, 'Where are you from? Are you Sri Lankan? Are you Indian?' To which one of the Sri Lankan-origin men replied: 'Yes, we are.' The three men then beat them up relentlessly, punching and kicking them until the British Indian and his friend were left lying unconscious on the ground, the sister said. 'My brother was wearing a sacred thread from a mandir on his wrist,' the sister said. One of the attackers was wearing a Moroccan football T-shirt with the number 2 and the word 'Hakimi'. Police and ambulances arrived and the British Indian was taken to the hospital. The other two had to make their own way there. 'My brother is struggling. He feels as if people are looking at him and is ashamed to step out of the house. He has never been involved in a fight before,' the sister told TOI on Friday. 'He has just done his first-year exams and was meant to resume his two-week clinical placement the week after the attack and that has been put on hold.' She also said she was unhappy with how the police investigation was progressing, as two weeks later, they still had not examined CCTV footage. The Met Police told TOI they were called to deal with a 'fight' and one man was taken to hospital 'with a head injury'. 'There is no evidence at this time that this attack was racially motivated. Our enquiries into the circumstances continue. No arrests have been made,' a spokesperson said.


United News of India
2 hours ago
- United News of India
Hyd: DoT busts illegal Telecom Setup in Secunderabad
Hyderabad, June 13 (UNI) The Department of Telecom (DoT) unit at Hyderabad on Friday busted an illegal telecom setup in Secunderabad. Under the Dynamic leadership of Union Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Department of Telecom is proactively working to curb the illegal routing of calls and cyber frauds. With the analysis and intelligence by the Hyderabad unit of DoT, an illegal call routing set-up was identified at Secunderabad and was busted on the night of Thursday in coordination with the Telangana Police. The illegal set-up was being operated using SIP connections procured by a firm in Hyderabad. A SIP server, three laptops, one monitor and related network equipment was seized in a joint operation of Department of Telecom with Telangana Police The SIP connections were being used to route the international calls from foreign countries to Indian customers in an illegal way. Calls were found to be routed from Middle-East and America, but showing local Indian numbers. Illegal routing of calls causes revenue loss to the nation and causes hardship to innocent subscribers. Anti-National elements also sometimes use these illegal methods. Two FIRs have been filed against the Firm and one suuspect has been apprehended by the police. Involvement of some other persons is suspected and is also being analysed for future action. Further investigation is underway. UNI KNR SSP


Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Chennai customs bust hydroponic ganja racket
Chennai: The arrest of two mules in recent weeks has seen the Chennai airport customs bust a reinvented modus operandi of drug smugglers using Sri Lanka as a transit point to bring in high-potent ganja varieties into the country. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now On Tuesday, the air intelligence unit (AIU) team, based on intelligence, intercepted a man who arrived from Bangkok, Thailand, via Colombo. When his checked-in baggage was examined, the AIU team found some suspicious looking food packets emitting a strong odour. Six such transparent packets containing green flowering and fruiting tops, weighing 2.8kg, were seized. Testing of the samples using the field drug testing kit confirmed that it was marijuana. It was seized under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. Interrogation revealed that the flyer was promised 1.2 lakh if he delivered the contraband in Bengaluru. He had planned to reach Bengaluru by road if not caught at Chennai airport. While he was remanded in judicial custody on Thursday, customs sleuths said the six kg hydroponic ganja seized on May 16 was also smuggled from Thailand via Colombo. The contraband was hidden within 13 sealed packets disguised as 'Ritz toasted chips and multigrain tortilla chips'. Officials suspect that the smugglers might have used Sri Lanka as a transit point to reach Chennai to avoid suspicion since suspected flyers arriving from Bangkok undergo rigorous checking by customs at Chennai airport. "Smugglers bringing drugs via Sri Lanka is not new, but now they have changed the modus operandi since vigilance is tight at Chennai airport," said sources. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Customs sleuths also said that in both incidents, the final destination of the drug was Bengaluru, not Chennai, and they are investigating if the same gang is behind both incidents. Meanwhile, customs sleuths arrested an Indian male passenger who arrived from Thailand on Thursday in possession of 2.4 kg hydroponic weed wrapped in silver foils. The passenger was arrested and remanded in judicial custody. Chennai customs also made another seizure of 1 kg hydroponic ganja that was couriered from Thailand on June 3. Customs officers at the Postal Appraising Department (PAD) checked a package after suspicious results from X-ray scanning and discovered two packets of hydroponic weed, weighing a total of 1.022kg.