Cheated by human smugglers, man kills self

Ahmedabad: Cheated by human smugglers and stuck in the vicious circle of moneylenders, a man from Ambaliyasan from Kadi taluka in Mehsana district committed suicide by consuming poison-laced liquor and later jumping into Narmada canal on June 28, according to a police complaint filed on Sunday.
According to the FIR filed with Kadi police, deceased Anil Valand ran a hairdresser’s shop in Ambaliyasan.
Anil had suffered financial crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic. He then came into contact with alleged human smugglers Vinod Chaudhary, Bachu Chaudhary, Mohan Patel and Chintan Patel from Mansa in Gandhinagar.
The four allegedly offered Anil to get them some people who wanted to settle in the US for which they promised commission to Anil.
Kadi police officials said that Anil began giving those human smugglers passengers for the US in lieu of commission for around two years.
On the other hand, a moneylender Parsing Chaudhary, who had lent Rs 25 lakh during Covid pandemic to Anil, ended up recovering Rs 1.25 crore from him and was seeking Rs 50 lakh more.
To pay off his debt, Anil fell into the trap of other moneylenders and also began giving more people to those four human smugglers to get more money. But for around a year, the human smugglers only took money from Anil’s passengers and neither sent them to the US nor returned his money. In the meantime, Anil contacted a human smuggler from Ambala in Haryana named Jasbir Singh to get the student visa of the US for his nephew Darshan Valand in Jan. For this, Anil had allegedly paid Rs 14 lakh to Singh, but he also cheated him.
In the last week of June, Anil told his son Pradip Valand that four human smugglers from Gujarat and one from Haryana were harassing him and threatening to kill him as he asked them about various ‘pending files’ for the US.
On June 28 evening, Anil left his house and did not return till the next day.
On June 29 morning, his family found his car parked near Bapa Sitaram Madhuli near Narmada canal and his body floating in the canal. A suicide note was also found from the car in which he had named 10 persons including four alleged human smugglers from Mansa and one from Ambala.
Kadi police registered a case of abetment to suicide, breach of trust, extortion, criminal intimidation and abetment under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Gujarat Money Lenders Act.