As Gujarat contends with the news of four from the state freezing to death near the US border, it has emerged that two families from a Gandhinagar village have gone missing en route to the US via Turkey. These two families comprise six members, according to Gandhinagar Police. Sources in police said that two different Patel families from a village in Kalol taluka of Gandhinagar had left for the US via Istanbul.
The sources said that they were abducted by human traffickers in Istanbul and have been held to ransom. “One family consists of Tejas Patel, his wife Alka, and their son Divya,”said an officer of Gandhinagar Police. “The second family’s members are Suresh Patel, his wife Shobha, and their daughter Foram. They had left their village for the US in the last week of December or the first week of January. ”
The officer said that the Indian embassy in Istanbul received a complaint about the abduction from the relatives and friends of the victims. A team of the CID (crime) has been trying to reconstruct the families’ itinerary: how they went to Istanbul and how they intended to reach the US.
