Holy cow! Indian AP students get cattle tags in US

Hyderabad, Jan. 29: The fate of hundreds of Indian students enrolled in various programmes at Tri-Valley University seem to be getting from bad to worse. According to a federal complaint filed in a California court, the University, which was raided and shut down last week, helped foreign nationals illegally acquire immigration status.

The Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, a major suburb in San Francisco Bay Area, has been charged by federal investigating authorities with being part of an effort to defraud, misuse visa permits and indulge in money laundering and other crimes.

Now as if that was not bad news, the latest one is that some students have been RFID-tagged (radio frequency identification) so as to keep track of their movements by the US federal authorities. These microchip-embedded tags are used for pets like cats and dogs so that they don't go missing. They are also used in some western countries to keep a tab on prisoner-movements.

Human Rights supporters have called the move “degrading and inhuman."

TV channels aired the visuals of these students with RFID-tags on their legs which did not go down well with parents back home in India. The parents strongly voiced their opinion and said that the US authorities are causing distress to their children for no fault of theirs. The university is said to have 1,555 students of which 95 per cent are Indians and more specifically from Andhra Pradesh.

The parents requested both Centre and State governments to intervene in the matter and claimed that their children was dragged into the controversy and was unaware of the fraudulent activities of the university.

The US Consulate General commented on the matter and said, “This is an ongoing investigation and it would be inappropriate to discuss it at this time. I can tell you that we have discussed this case with our Indian counterparts."

OneIndia News