Hyderabad: Around 200 students from Hyderabad are said to have taken admissions in Silicon Valley University, San Jose and North Western Polytec-hnic University, Fre-mont, in the US and have made arrangements to leave for the US shortly.
Nearly 2,500 Indian students, mostly from Hyderabad, are already said to be studying there. The future of these students are now uncertain with no official notice regarding whether the varsities are “blacklisted” or not.
While Air India claims that it had received communication from the US government that both these universities were “blacklisted”, there is no official communication either from the Indian external affairs ministry or the American consulate in Hyderabad on it.
Meanwhile, both universities have reiterated that they are not “blacklisted” and the problem cropped up only with those students who were travelling by Air India and said that the tightened security measures were on account of the recent Paris attacks.
The 14 who were deported arrived in Delhi on Monday, with the word “revoked” stamped across their passport in red. “We were interrogated for 14-15 hours by the FBI. It was humiliating,” said Mr Deepak, 23, whose father has a transport business. “It was hard to raise Rs 2-3 lakh for a US university. How will the blemish go from my passport?” he asked.
“I gave up my job to study in the US. My dreams, my parents’ hard-earned money, one whole year...all gone,” said 22-year-old Mr Bharat, the son of a farmer in Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, Air India stated on Monday that they had received communication on December 19 from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency that two universities were under scrutiny. Students who arrived in San Francisco were not allowed to enter the US and were to be deported to India. It said that so far 14 students who travelled on Air India flights had been deported.
