Police uses force against student visa applicants in Jalandhar

JALANDHAR - Police had to be use force to control hundreds of boys and girls seeking student visas for Britain outside the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) centre in this Punjab city Tuesday, as the aspirants tried to beat the Oct 1 deadline when new and stricter visa guidelines come into effect.

The Punjab police, which were called out to control hundreds of visa applicants and relatives accompanying them, resorted to cane charge and pushing the applicants away several times to control entry into the VFS centre.

Many applicants, including girls, fainted during all this action.

Scores of applicants had queued up outside the centre since Monday morning even though the centre opened Tuesday morning only. Several queues, extending to nearly 500 metres, were seen despite the sweltering heat.

“We have been standing here since yesterday (Monday) morning. There are no arrangements. Everything is in a chaos,” a female applicant said.

With no arrangements being made by the VFS centre management and British high commission to make things orderly, the district authorities and police had to chip in, a police official said.