NEW DELHI: Brijesh Mishra, an Indian immigration agent from Punjab and one of the main accused involved in a scam of providing fake admission letters to Canadian colleges, was apprehended in Canada and is presently facing criminal charges there.
Brijesh Mishra is the owner of an immigration agency named EMSA in Jalandhar and he went missing just before the scandal surfaced. This led to a situation where hundreds of students from Punjab and other Indian states have been put at risk of deportation by these fraudulent college admission letters.
A number of international students hailing from Punjab had named Brijesh and other immigration agents for their involvement in duping them by providing fake offer letters for admission in various colleges in Canada.
Students availing of admissions based on such fraudulent letters are now facing fear of deportation from Canada. The deportation process was kept on hold by the Canadian government after students protested the move for 18 days.
Mishra was held by the Canada Border Services Agency on Friday, which charged him with offering immigration advice without a license and falsely counselling others by misrepresenting or withholding information from authorities.
After being taken into custody on Friday, he was officially charged for his alleged role in issuing fake letters of acceptance to prospective Indian students seeking admission to Canadian colleges.
Mishra is currently in undergoing pre-trial detention in British Columbia of Canada. A source disclosed that, from the time he has been criminally charged, his custody has been transferred to law enforcement in British Columbia from the Canada Border Services Agency.
"A bail hearing for Mishra is scheduled for tonight, although there is a possibility of an adjournment, in which case, the bail hearing would take place on Monday," the source said.
The recent developments follow on the heels of recent announcements by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, who had promised to stop the deportations pending against international Indian students claiming to have been deceived by Mishra and other such unscrupulous agents in India.
In the meantime, around hundreds of a group of affected students wrote a letter addressed to the Chief Minister of Punjab, urging him to take swift action to address the issue. They stressed on the necessity of identifying the immigration agents and agencies involved in these fraudulent activities.
They accused the agents of tampering with their admission letters and that they only discovered the issue when notified by border officials during processing of their postgraduate work permit or permanent residence application.
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