The Canada Border Security Agency has issued deportation notices to 700 Indian students after their visa documents were found to be fake. According to reports, these students received their visas from Jalandhar-based Education Migration Services, run by Brijesh Mishra, who helped students with visa applications.
A report by The Indian Express stated that Mishra charged at least Rs 16 lakh per student for the visa expenses, including the admission fee but barring airfares and security deposits. Canadian authorities have reportedly alleged that the students generated ‘admission offer letters’ to enter the country for their education.
These students are said to have travelled to Canada during 2018-19. This is the first time a student visa fraud of this scale has come to light in Canada.
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According to a report by indianarrative.com, Chaman Singh Batth, a student from Toronto, told them on the phone that after passing twelfth grade, about 700 students applied for study visas through Education Migration Services. He and other students landed in Toronto and were heading to Humber college when they received a telephone call from Mishra that all seats in the courses offered to them got filled and that they will have to wait till the start of the next semester, which was after 6 months.
The student added, as per the report, that Mishra also said that they could get admission to some other college. He returned their college fees which made the students believe he was genuine, Batth told the news website.
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The students took admission to other colleges and completed their courses. Some of them reportedly also got work permits, reports said. It was only now that the CBSA found out that the letters were fake. Outlook could not independently verify the report.
There is no official statement from the Canadian authorities on the same yet, but reports say that they have refused to accept claims of innocence of the victims.
