By Rajinder S Taggar
Chandigarh, Mar 15: The Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) has issued deportation notices to over 700 Indian students whose admission offer letters to educational institutions were found to be fake.
Talking to indianarrative.com on phone from Toronto, Chaman Singh Batth said that after passing +2, about 700 students applied for study visa through Education Migration Services, Jalandhar headed by one Brijesh Mishra. These visa applications were filed in 2018 onwards till 2022.
Mishra charged each student between Rs 16 to Rs 20 lakh for all expenses including admission fees to a premier institute Humber college. Air tickets and security deposits were not included in the payment to the agent.
Batth said after he and other students landed in Toronto and were heading to Humber college, a telephone call was received Mishra telling them that all seats in the courses offered to them got filled adding that they would now have to wait till the start of the next semester after 6 months or else they could get admission to some other college and safe time. He, however, returned their Humber college fee which further made students believe his genuineness.
Unsuspecting students as advised by Mishra contacted another college, less known, and took admission to available 2-year diploma courses. The classes commenced and after completion of the courses, students got work permits. On becoming eligible for permanent resident status in Canada, the students, as per rule, submitted relevant documents to the immigration department.
Batth says: "all trouble started when CBSA scrutinised the documents on the basis which visa was granted to the students and found admission offer letters fake. Deportation notices were issued to all the students after granting them an opportunity for a hearing."
To a question, Batth replied that the agent very cleverly did not himself sign our visa application files but made each student sign to show that the student was a self-applicant without hiring the services of any agent. This was deliberately done by Mishra as he had faked the documents.
The CBSA officials were now not accepting the claims of innocence of the "victims" as there was no evidence to prove that agent Mishra prepared and arranged all documents.
The CBSA was also not accepting the failure of the Canadian visa and airport authorities that issued visas and allowed them entry by checking the authenticity of all documents.
The only remedy left for the students is to challenge the deportation notices in court where proceedings may continue for 3 to 4 years. It is common knowledge that hiring the services of Canadian lawyers is a very costly proposition.
When the parents of cheated students tried to repeatedly contact the agent in Jalandhar, his office was found locked continuously.