Even as Indian students, mostly from Punjab, are staring at deportation after the authorities in Canada found their admission offer letters to educational institutions to be fake, the Punjab Government has taken up the issue with the high commissions of India and Canada.
Punjab NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal on Friday wrote letters to Sanjay Kumar Verma, High Commissioner, High Commission of India (Ottawa, Ontario), and Cameron Mackay, High Commission of Canada (Delhi), to solve the issue of approximately 700 students, mostly from Punjab, facing deportation from Canada.
In his letter, Mr. Dhaliwal said: “Your kind attention is invited towards the impending deportation of more than 700 students from Canada due to fake acceptance letters of the Canadian colleges. It is pertinent to mention that these students are innocent and have been cheated by the clique of fraudsters that includes this travel agent, officials in Canadian Embassy in India and other agencies in Canada.”
‘Future at stake’
He said the future of these students and of their families was at stake, and hence the issue should be raised with the agencies of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Government of Canada so that these students could be saved from deportation.
The matter came to light in March when these students applied for permanent residency in Canada.
A day earlier, Mr. Dhaliwal announced that the Punjab Government would provide free legal assistance to these students. Expressing concern that many travel agents were running immigration agencies illegally, Mr. Dhaliwal had also issued instructions to all Deputy Commissioners and the police to scrutinise the documents of travel agents and immigration agencies across the State and send a report by July 10.
Mr. Dhaliwal said instructions to improve the system had already been given, and if the system would be transparent and clean, then there would be less scope for human trafficking by illegal travel immigration agencies. “A special campaign against fake travel agents-immigration agencies would soon be launched in Punjab so that no one could be involved in human trafficking,” he stated.
