4 Sep 2007
TNN (India)
PUNE: Foreign students from various institutions affiliated to the University of Pune have complained of harassment, high-handedness and corruption by police personnel at the foreigners’ registration office (FRO) at the Pune police commissionerate.
A representation, signed by over 300 students, mostly from African, central and west Asian countries, has been made to the vice-chancellor and the International Students’ Centre (ISC), seeking redressal.
The issue also puts a question mark over the effectiveness of the single-window facilitation centre established last year at the ISC precisely for restricting the interface between foreign students and police, to the minimum.
Under the single-window initiative, FRO personnel visit the ISC once a week, from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm on Mondays, to collect pleas by foreign students regarding extension of visa, return of visa, residential permit and other verification issues. The students are supposed to get their pleas with due endorsements within 15 days of filing the application.
However, things aren’t working out that way as was evident from complaints raised by students, a sizeable number of them being girls, from countries like Kenya, Kyrgystan, Cambodia, Japan, Mauritius and Iran, during an interaction with reporters near the university main building on Monday evening.
The least we expect is that the police should stop behaving badly with us, said an Iranian girl student while narrating her experience of repeated visits to the FRO for visa extension.
Another girl, an Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholar from Cambodia engaged in post-graduate studies here, narrated her experience of frequenting between the ISC single-window centre and the Chatushrungi police station for the last five weeks to get her visa extension endorsed.
A representation, signed by over 300 students, mostly from African, central and west Asian countries, has been made to the vice-chancellor and the International Students’ Centre (ISC), seeking redressal.
The issue also puts a question mark over the effectiveness of the single-window facilitation centre established last year at the ISC precisely for restricting the interface between foreign students and police, to the minimum.
Under the single-window initiative, FRO personnel visit the ISC once a week, from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm on Mondays, to collect pleas by foreign students regarding extension of visa, return of visa, residential permit and other verification issues. The students are supposed to get their pleas with due endorsements within 15 days of filing the application.
However, things aren’t working out that way as was evident from complaints raised by students, a sizeable number of them being girls, from countries like Kenya, Kyrgystan, Cambodia, Japan, Mauritius and Iran, during an interaction with reporters near the university main building on Monday evening.
The least we expect is that the police should stop behaving badly with us, said an Iranian girl student while narrating her experience of repeated visits to the FRO for visa extension.
Another girl, an Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholar from Cambodia engaged in post-graduate studies here, narrated her experience of frequenting between the ISC single-window centre and the Chatushrungi police station for the last five weeks to get her visa extension endorsed.
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