In recent news, the district commissioner of Jalandhar suspended the license of a company called Education and Migration Services, which was linked to travel agent Brijesh Mishra. This action was taken following reports that Canada was deporting 700 Indian students, mostly from Punjab, after discovering that their visa documents were fake. These students had obtained their visas through Jalandhar-based Education Migration Services, which was run by Mishra.
However, when the police located his office near the Jalandhar Bus Stand, they found it to be shut down for the past seven months. As a result, the Jalandhar DC suspended the firm's license and issued a show-cause notice to Rahul Bhargava of Education and Migration Services, in which Mishra was a partner. The DC has asked them to appear before him on March 20 to give a clarification on the issue, else their license would be cancelled.
Brijesh Mishra, originally from Bihar, started his consultancy firm in 2014, but had a prior record of forging documents to send students abroad in 2013. During this period, he ran a consultancy firm called 'Easy Way Immigration Consultancy,' which was raided by the police and had cash and passports seized. Rahul Bhargava was also a director of this firm. Mishra had also taken the franchise of a Delhi-based consultancy, which facilitated student visas for Canada. Mishra charged each student more than Rs 16 lakh, including tuition at Humber College in Toronto, but did not include airfare or security deposits.
According to sources from the company, Mishra pocketed Rs 5–6 lakh each student and returned the balance funds when they enrolled in other Canadian colleges. But, after arriving in Canada, the majority of the students received offer letters for universities where they did not enrol. Students were either advised to wait until the following semester or transferred to other colleges.
The students went to Canada on a study visa between 2018-2019, but the fraud came to light after they applied for permanent residency in the country recently. The students allegedly produced "admission offer letters" to enter Canada for their academic purposes, according to Canadian authorities. Students claimed that they had applied for study visas through Brijesh Mishra-led Education Migration Services in Jalandhar from 2018 to 2022, but they were unable to substantiate the involvement of Mishra in compiling and organizing fake documents. This incident raises questions about the actions of the administration in cracking down on illegal and dubious immigration firms that are still operational in Punjab. The futures and funds of 700 Indian students are at stake, and it's time for a more stringent approach to be taken.
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