Days after death at US border, a family in Gujarat waits for word

According to media reports from Mexico, Brijkumar fell to his death while scaling a wall near Tijuana to illegally cross the border into the US.

A Tijuana news website reported on December 15 that he was with his wife and son during the crossing. The woman fell on US soil while he fell from a height of five metres on the Mexican side along with his son, the website reported, adding that “the minor is already with his mother in the US”.

According to Brijkumar’s elder brother Vinod Yadav, he learnt that the three-member family, including the couple’s three-year-old son Tanmay, had reached Mexico only after Pooja’s call although the brothers lived together with their families and parents in a three-bedroom flat on the Chhatral-Lunasan Road in Gandhinagar district.

“My brother was very fond of travelling. On weekends, he would go to Ahmedabad and Mehsana… during vacations and festivals, he would visit other cities. They travelled abroad for the first time over three years ago, before Tanmay was born, to Indonesia for a month-and-a-half-long holiday,” says Vinod, 40.

“But he never expressed a desire to settle abroad,” he says. Brijkumar worked as an accountant in a private firm for a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 and Pooja as a teacher at a private school for Rs 20,000 a month, says Vinod.

When contacted, Kalol Deputy Superintendent of Police P D Manvar said: “When we enquired, the family told us that Brijkumar said they were going on a trip and will be back in a month.”

The police have not received any communication about the incident from any official agency in the US or Mexico. They have also not been able to identify the agent who had facilitated the family’s journey. “Our men are on the job,” says Additional Director General of Police (CID Crime) R B Brahmbhatt.

Hailing from Pathak Purwa village in UP’s Gonda, the Yadavs settled in Kalol more than five decades ago when his grandfather came here for work, says Vinod. They shifted to the apartment after Brijkumar’s father Daxiniprasad (66) retired as a technician from BSNL in 2016. Vinod and Sushila have an 11-year-old son. And Brijkumar and Vinod have a sister who is settled in Gonda.

“There have been cases of migrants from UP in Gujarat going to the Middle East in this manner but this is one of the first cases from here to the US,” says R P Dubey, who heads the district wing of Uttar Bhartiya Vikas Parishad.

Last January, a four-member Gujarati family, including two minors, from Dingucha village of Kalol had frozen to death while illegally crossing over to the US from Canada. Investigations in that case are still on, say police.

Brijkumar’s brother, meanwhile, is grappling with the challenge of informing their relatives in UP about the incident. “We understand that everyone is worried about Brij and his family but even we are helpless,” says Vinod with folded hands, as his mother lies disconsolate in the room.