By Alfred Tavares. Stockholm County, Sweden, 08:31 AM IST

Convicted human smuggler Jagdeep Singh has brought about a virtual stop to Indian scholars from being legally admitted into Sweden and thus into Swedish academia.

After it became known that over 100 Indians entering Sweden with student visas sponsored by Swedish institutions had gone underground since April 2006, the Swedish Migrations´ Board (SMB) has threatened to impose an en masse embargo on granting such visas in future.

'A real tragedy for the long-standing vital inter-exchange between Indian and Swedish academic institutions,' said Seshadri Seetharaman, head of the department of metallurgy at Stockholm´s prestigious Royal Institute of Technology or KTH (Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan).

'If the Swedish Migrations Board goes ahead with their threat to bar all Indian students applying for higher studies in Sweden, it will be a disastrous setback for a century of educational interaction between the two countries,' Seetharaman told IANS.

Seetharaman knows what he is talking about. After being invited to join KTH in 1973, the Tamil Nadu-born professor has helped hundreds of Indian students to study at the KTH and other Swedish institutions and vice versa.

Said Gunnar Jacks, Seetharaman´s colleague at KTH and a noted Indophile: 'It is very sad. I have worked with literally countless Indian students over the last half a century, all of them of the highest intellectual and moral integrity. To classify them with such unscrupulous merchants of humanity is in itself truly criminal.'

Jacks is also a visiting professor at the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University in Coimbatore. He and his wife, Birgitta, have helped hundreds of Indian students complete their studies in Sweden, often at their personal expense.

Convicted Oct 19 by the Swedish High Court in Nykoping, Jagdeep Singh is an alleged tool of human smugglers from Southeast Asia into the Schengen countries.

'Jagdeep Singh, during the period from July 2006 until Aug 9, 2006, in collaboration with others, has with commercial intent helped Indian citizens to illegally enter into and pass through Sweden as well as, with similar intent, helped them to illegally travel to other countries within the European Union,' reads the judgement of the court made available to IANS.

'After serving six months in jail, Jagdeep Singh will be deported to India and barred from entering Sweden for lifetime,' wrote the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

'Over 100 Indians, since last April, under cover of being 'invited Indian scholars' have come into Sweden and then disappeared,' it added.

These 'students', according to investigators, paid Indian agents posing as representatives of Swedish academic institutions between 60,000 and 70,000 Swedish Kronor (approximately $8,000-9,500) for being sponsored by reputed Swedish institutions.

'These sums include payments for travel, costs of the 40-week course (42,000 SEK), the course literature and miscellaneous extra costs to the school,' said Lars Karlberg, executive director of the Travel and Tourism institute, to which the bogus students were allegedly admitted.

'We had received enquiries from an Indian firm - The Hope Consultancy - about our post-high school courses and replied with due information about length and costs of the respective courses. That is all.'

Said SMB´s Kent Sjoholm: 'The Indians have done a clean rope-trick. Although some are believed to have gone underground in Sweden, we estimate that the bulk have dispersed throughout the Schengen region and the UK where most of them have relatives. Some were unaware that the UK was not a member of the Schengen treaty and had to pay heavy additional sums to be smuggled there.'

Sjoholm added: 'The SMB quite certainly will refuse to grant student visa to any more Indian students applying for post-high school studies in Sweden. Though this is not a formal decision, we are going to be very restrictive even in cases where the Swedish sponsorships are serious. Most of the applications have already been rejected since we discovered bogus bank transactions or that the 'students' could not speak even a word in English.'

Singh was arrested Aug 9 at the Skavsta airport, south of Stockholm, when he was reportedly about to board a flight to Spain with four other non-Indian accomplices.

The Hope Consultancy, reportedly operating from New Delhi, has also apparently vanished as effectively as the 'students´. Despite frantic efforts by Swedish authorities, none has succeeded to trace them.

Besides Travel and Tourism, other Swedish institutions that feel themselves ill used are - Travel Education Centre AB, Academia AB and Gastronomihogskolan - all of them with high standards of professionalism respected worldwide.

By Alfred Tavares (Staff Writer, © IANS)