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०५ बुधबार, मंसिर २०८१23rd July 2024, 10:09:55 am

THE STRINGS OF A STING-OPERATION

१० सोमबार , कार्तिक २०७७४ बर्ष अगाडि

Ali Sukhanver--
Sometimes the criminals are so clever that the law enforcement agencies simply fail in reaching them. Not only in the Asian countries but everywhere all over the world the war between the law-enforcement agencies and the criminal culprits never comes to an end. Even in Israel and USA, the professional criminals give a very tough time the law enforcement agencies. It also happens that when there remains no way to reach the criminals, the law enforcement agencies take support of Sting Operations. This term is used for a very well planned and well organized type of scheme designed to catch a person committing a crime. A definition of Sting Operation says, “A sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a criminal red-handed.”  Such operations are materialized with the help of undercover law enforcement officers, detectives or co-operative members of the society. These members play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect’s actions to gather evidence of the suspect’s wrongdoing. Occasionally mass media journalists also provide a support to sting operations by recording video and voice-clips. In most of the countries sting operations are considered a legal action against the criminals but there are a few countries where sting operations are not permitted. 
Sting operations are not always against only the criminals involved in terrorism and drug-trafficking; there have been many examples of such operations against the criminals involved in visa frauds too. Usually the targets of such criminals are the young students aspiring to enter the prosperous and peaceful countries like US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The peace and prosperity of such countries have made them the most attractive destinations for international students. Apparently these students seem seeking a world-class, internationally recognized educational degree from there but actually they are in search of a permanent abode where they could live a happy life; among such students, the largest number belongs to India. Certainly things are not very hopeful for the young students in India; they have to face scarcity of jobs and new avenues of progress as well.
UNESCO Institute of Statistics said in an analysis that in 2000 the total number of Indian overseas students was 66,713; this number increased to 3, 01,406 in 2016. The analysis report pointed out average annual growth rate of 22% in a span of 16 years. This increasing number of the aspirant Indian student was something very alarming for the countries where these students had been trying to reach. In the years 2011-12 an international intelligence networking unit pointed a surge in student visa frauds especially from India; the same report was testified by different media groups also. So to keep an eye on the criminals involved in visa-frauds and to crack down on student, the destination countries designed sting-operations against the culprits. Unfortunately these operations did not do all that was required.
Somewhere in March 2020, New Zealand’s first MP Shane Jones complained talking to media that the Indian students were ruining academic institutions in New Zealand. He said, “I think that the students that have come from India have ruined many of our institutions, I think it’s a backdoor to citizenship’. He further said that many Indian students were found involved in criminal activities like prostitution. In 2019 also, he had raised his concerns in relation of Indian community. His words were, “The Indians have no legitimate expectations in my view to bring their whole village to New Zealand.’ It was not only New Zealand in trouble because of the Indian students; even the US has been facing the same type of problems. The US had to devise sting operations so many times against the immigrants from India. One of these sting operations was planned by the US Department of Homeland Security in Metro Detroit.
According to the details in January 2020, a phony university was created in Metro Detroit to catch students for alleged violation of immigration laws. The name of that university was Farmington University. There were more than 250 students from overseas who succeeded in getting admission to that fake university and used the admission papers for getting student-visas with the help of their local travel-agents. Most of them were from India. In the wake of that sting operation U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities arrested those Indian students who obtained student visas fraudulently under the pretext of attending the university. It is also a notable point that after this sting operation the scrutiny process for the Indian visa-aspirants to US was made very strict. The Indian government had expressed strong resentment over this action of the US government.
Same has been the expression of the Canadian authorities who have time and again expressed their displeasure over the ‘lawlessness and ill behaviour of the Indian students’. They are of the opinion that the ‘Canadian public at large is terrorized by the ill behaving Indian students who carry out gangster like acts as frequently done in Indian Universities or Indian public places.’ Unfortunately no expression of resentment or displeasure ever compels the Indian authorities to review this state of affairs as they have more important things to do like changing demographic status of the Jammu & Kashmir.