(Ottawa) President of the India Association in Manitoba says he hopes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Consulate General of India will be able to identify the four bodies found in southern Manitoba, near the border with the United States.
Posted at 10:27 p.m.
Ramandeep Grewal said a representative from the consulate, located in Toronto, was scheduled to arrive in Manitoba Friday evening and start working with investigators on Saturday morning. RCMP officers this week found four bodies in the snow near Emerson, Manitoba, a few meters from the US border.
The temperatures were frigid at the time and the RCMP believe that these four people, including a baby and a teenager, froze to death in the middle of a freezing blizzard on these vast snow-covered plains.
US border officials allege that these victims were part of a group of Indian migrants trying to cross into the United States from Canada. Mr. Grewal says his organization has also set to work to find relatives of the deceased family.
“We first want to identify these people because the families in India will want to repatriate the remains,” he explained in a telephone interview on Friday.
However, he believes that those close to him may be worried about the international attention associated with this case. The Manitoba association therefore wants to offer support to the family.
“We want to tell them that it’s always a good idea to cooperate with the investigators. This is tragic news for all of us. We are devastated,” Mr Grewal continued. A 47-year-old Florida man, Steve Shand, has been charged with human trafficking. He is due back in court on Monday.
Justin Trudeau said Friday that the death of this family is a tragic and disturbing event. The Prime Minister assured that the Canadian government was doing everything it could to discourage people from trying to cross the border in this way, endangering their own lives, but also the entire functioning of the immigration system.