Police drop deportation order against Indian students

The police have dropped a deportation order against five Indian students in a case that has dragged on for more than a month and which risked souring diplomatic relations between Malta and India.

The students' lawyer Leon Bencini said the Police Commissioner informed them the deportation order had been lifted.

"On Monday we will be withdrawing the case we filed in front of the Immigration Appeals Board," Dr Bencini said.

Despite this incident, Malta's relations with India remain healthy, a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman said after the deportation order was lifted.

"The Maltese High Commission in New Delhi kept on processing visas as usual, and therefore no harm was reported because of this incident," he said.

The momentum of improving bilateral relations between the two countries has been kept, he added, and the results achieved by a business delegation that visited India were encouraging.

The students had their visas withdrawn and were issued with a deportation order after the school in Ħamrun where they studied logistics and management reported them absent. Student visas are issued on condition the students attend classes regularly.

However, the students contested all charges brought against them including the accusation they did not have the money to sustain themselves.

The students also complained about the service they received from the school which they claimed was inferior to what had been promised.

Upon arrest, for two weeks, the students were held at the Ta' Kandja detention centre before being released on bail.

The issue was resolved after another school, Computer Domain, offered the students an alternative scholarship after the first school refused to take them back even if the deportation case fell through.

India had applied diplomatic pressure for a resolution on the matter and even responded by withdrawing the visas of some businessmen operating in the education sector who formed part of the Malta Enterprise trade delegation to India last month.

The managing director of Computer Domain, Nick Callus had said the scholarship offer was intended to help the students and so that relations between Malta and India would not sour over the incident.