American authorities have urged Mehsana police in Gujarat to probe into an alleged racket in which disentitled students were unlawfully scoring high marks in International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to receive admission to Canada, only to later smuggle into the US, an official said on Monday.
Investigation up till now, has shown that no transparency was maintained by the agency which conducted the exams. CCTV of the halls was switched off when the exam was taken place last September, says Bhavesh Rathod, Inspector of the Mehsana police’s Special Operations Group, (SOG). These six young adults were apprehended in a failed attempt to sneak into the US from Canada. In the age group of 19-21, these youths were caught from a sinking boat in the Saint Regis river in Akwesasne, US, close to the Canadian border.
Out of the six, four are from Mehsana, and the other two belong to Gandhinagar and Patan, says Rathod. He further shared how the students failed to answer questions in English by the judge. They had to get the help of a Hindi translator. The entire scenario shocked the court, as these students had scored 6.5-7 bands in IELTS. Even students fluent in English have to work hard to get such a score, which means there is something fishy about how these students got a good score.
An email was sent by the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai to Mehsana police, asking them to conduct an inquiry. They asked them to research how these students from Mehsana got a high score, and which agents or agencies were involved, Rathod shares.
The IELTS is a mandatory examination for many of those who wish to seek admission in good colleges outside India. It is an international standardized test to examine non native English language speakers’ English language proficiency.
Probe up till now has found four students, named as Dhruv Patel, Neel Patel, Urvish Patel, and Savan Patel appeared for the IELTS exam at a center in south Gujarat’s Navsari town on September 25,2021 and they went to Canada on student visa on March 19, almost two weeks before they were nabbed at the US Canada border.
The agency which was responsible for conducting the exam is based in Ahmedabad. The manager of the banquet hall in Navsari, which was hired for the exam, revealed that there was something suspicious as the exam supervisors had turned off the CCTV cameras before the exam. The action demonstrates a lack of transparency and indicates the presence of something unlawful being taken place.
The agency owners have been asked to appear before Mehsana SOG within 48 hours with related documents as part of the investigation.
