Fake marriage adverts caused increase in visa applications
by Harleen Kaur - February 3, 2010
United Kingdom, February 3: According to immigration officials and experts in the United Kingdom, the reason behind sudden increase in UK visa application numbers from India has been due to increased advertisements for fake paper marriages.
This has been reported by a renowned news publication, The Daily Telegraph. It stated that several fraudulent immigration agents in Indian were using the new points based system (PBS) introduced by the UK for immigrating to the country. Hence, they were alluring a majority of unqualified applicants and also helping them in arranging fake paper marriages (court marriages) so as to enable them get Tier 4 Student visa for the UK.
So, the spouses of such applicants enter Britain through sham marriages and get employed there. That is not all. They even explore various options to extend their UK visas so as to stay there permanently.
There has been a tremendous increase in the number of matrimonial adverts involving fake marriages which required Indian alliances for foreign settled boys. And these adverts were found in a number of famous daily publications of Punjab in India.
It was revealed by the immigration agents that those having UK student visas were being targeted by several families in India so as to marry their sons or daughters by arranging a paper marriage. They did not hesitate to pay a hefty sum of up to £10,000. The primary motive of all such marriages is to gain entry into the UK, reported the Daily Telegraph.
However, increased fake marriages are not the only reason for a noteworthy rise in UK student visas from India. Another reason is that the Australian visas have lost any charm for the Indian students in the wake of unabated attacks on the Indians since the last year. Moreover, there have been some amendments in the norms for applicants seeking Australian student visa resulting in decline in the applications for Australian visa.
The UK Border Agency has already issued suspension orders for nearly 60 education providers in the UK after their role in the student visa scam.
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