Deportation notices to 700 students: Sukhbir urges MEA to take up issue with Canadian authorities
Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday requested Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar to take up the case of 700 Punjabi students ,who face imminent deportation from Canada, with the Canadian authorities.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday requested Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar to take up the case of 700 Punjabi students ,who face imminent deportation from Canada, with the Canadian authorities, saying the students are at the receiving end with fault of theirs. Badal wrote a letter to the MEA on Friday.
In a statement here, the SAD president said the 700 students, who had received deportation letters from the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) after their admission offer letters submitted to an Ontario-based public college were found to be fake, were duped by an education migration service company.
“The students are victims of a scam perpetrated on them. Acting against them will not only endanger their future but will virtually destroy 700 families as the parents of the students have spent their hard-earned money to educate their wards in Canada with the hope of being granted Permanent Residency,” he added.
Giving details of the case, Sukhbir said the students paid ₹16 to ₹20 lakh to the company, which purportedly facilitated their admission in Humber College in Ontario by generating fake admission offer letters along with fake fee deposit receipts.
“The students were given visas on the basis of this forgery by the Canadian embassy”. He said upon arrival in Canada the company informed the students that their admission to Humber University had been cancelled and facilitated their admission to another institution after taking a commission between ₹5- ₹6lakh.
He said the scam however came to light when some of the students applied for Permanent Residency (PR) and their documents were scrutinized.
Urging the External Affairs minister to apprise the Canadian government about the entire case besides stressing that the students had fallen victim to a scam, Sukhbir said, “The Canadian authorities should be requested to consider this case sympathetically on humanitarian grounds”.
Rajya Sabha member Vikarmjit Sahney on Friday said he will be take up with the issue of the deportation with Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, on Saturday, when the parliamentary committee of MEA meets in New Delhi.
“I have already spoken to Indian High Commission in Ottawa and asked them to investigate the matter thoroughly as to who issued these fake papers to the students. The culprits should be punished but we would request the Canadian Govt not to deport the students but rehabilitate them in Canadian universities”, Sahney said.
