Tragedies put a spanner in foreign dreams : The Tribune India

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Updated At:Jun 01, 202308:40 AM (IST)

Photo for representation. File photo

Tribune News Service

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, May 31

A spate of deaths or murders in May, of people who are already abroad or want to go there, in the region, has created the need to be circumspect over foreign aspirations. Dreams of greener pastures abroad claimed the lives of at least five people in the month of May alone.

At least three youths died in shootings in US in May. Another man and his mother-in-law died in close succession in India, after the man's US dreams soured since he was deported.

Spate of killings abroad

In close succession, on May 4 and 5, three deaths took place. On May 4, two Sultanpur Lodhi-based real brothers, Dilraj Singh and Guriqbal Singh, were shot dead in a shooting in Portland; on May 5, a Kapurthala-based youth Navjot Singh was shot dead by robbers at a petrol station where he was working; Sultanpur Lodhi resident Balwinder Singh died of suspected suicide, day after the murder of his mother-in-law on May 19.

The twin deaths (of Balwinder and his mother-in-law) came close on the heels of Balwinder's US dreams souring after his wife gained access to the US but he was deported back to India.

In January this year too, a Kapurthala man had died after being run over by a car in Fresno, California.

These deaths don't include other accidental deaths of Indians in the US.

On May 10, a Boparai (Kapurthala) father-son duo was also killed in an accident in Fresno, US while they were heading for a party to celebrate the completion of the son's medical education.

Kapurthala-based advocate Kulwant Singh said, "There is an unprecedented craze among people to go abroad. There are families whose only kids have died after going to the US in accidents or shootings. Yet relatives do not learn a lesson. People are ready to send children abroad by hook or by crook and while knowing they might be going through the perilous ‘donkey’ routes. On the other hand, there is an increased mental health crisis among those who don't make it. This is giving way to anxiety and depression among the young. There is also gloom among those who are sent back after spending hard-earned money and staying months in camps."

Former president of the NRI Sabha, Jasvir Singh Gill said, "The government should check the credentials of those going abroad and parents should educate kids to act sensibly. Increasingly, youths are heading abroad in a mad rush, not knowing what to do there. Some are forming gangs. The NRI Sabha earlier took up those cases but it's being rendered defunct, so no one is left to raise these issues. We had even sought CBI help in some cases. The government needs to extradite hardened criminals wanted in India, so a growing problem doesn't fester into an out-of-hand situation."

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The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.

The Tribune, the largest selling English daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the paper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.

The Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).

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