Bengaluru: Around 20 African students, including girls, had to sleep in a church for over three weeks after they were sent out of their houses by landlords as their college failed to pay the rent.
The students, most of them from Mali and Congo, are pursuing their graduation in BBA, BCA and B.Com at Loyola Business School, also named Bangalore International College (BIC) on their website, in Doddanekundi, Marathahalli in East Bengaluru.
The students allege that they paid a deposit of $550 each for their hostel fees along with Rs 2 lakh towards tuition fees for the year. But they found to their horror that the classes for two semesters were conducted in different rooms of a 4-BHK house in Karthik Nagar.
The world class hostel facilities as claimed by the college administration were nothing but two single-bedroomed houses with 10 students packed in each bedroom.
“The college put 25 of us in three single bedroom houses in Karthik Nagar, 10 boys each in two single-bedroom houses and five girls in another house near our college. As the management had neither paid the rent nor the deposit to these house owners, we were thrown out and we had to beg with the pastor at the nearby El-Bethel AG Church to allow us to stay for over three weeks,” said Attiah, one of the students.
The students have approached Bangalore University authorities twice for addressing their concerns and also the jurisdictional police for lodging a criminal complaint against the college for cheating them, but to no avail.
Forty of these students are petitioning the State Human Rights Commission on Monday, alleging that the college management has cheated them of Rs 70-80 lakh, which was collected from them as tuition and hostel fees. They want their money and seized documents back to allow them to join other colleges.
College management seizes students’ passports, papers
When the students demanded refund of their hostel deposits, the management allegedly confiscated their passports, education certificates and other documents, preventing them from leaving the college. “The college chairman threatened us that he had connections in FRRO, and he could get us deported,” claimed a student.
“We request the State Human Rights Commission to direct Bangalore University to take action against the college and also direct the police to register a criminal complaint against the management,” said Mr Bosco Kaweesi, legal adviser to the All-African Student Association in Bengaluru.
“Our parents invest lakhs of rupees after taking loans for us to get educated in India. We are promised ‘world class’ education and hostel facilities, but this what we get. I am not complaining against all colleges, but a majority of those that suit our pockets take us for a ride,” said Abraham Kwarteng, a student.
The students have written letters to their respective embassies and have brought it to the notice of FRRO. Loyola Business School /BIC has around 80 foreign students, most of them from African countries like Ghana, Congo, Nigeria, Mali, Togo, Ivory Coast and Tanzania. The college has an equal number of Indian students as well.
No varsity recognition for college
Loyola Business School was at RMV Extension Second Stage in Sanjay Nagar before it shut in 2014. “A marketer / agent named Mohammad Assad Malik, who was working with Bangalore Management Academy (BMA) in Doddanekundi, purchased the name – ‘Loyola Business School’ after the BMA closed down this year, rented a 4-BHK house in Karthik Nagar in Doddanekundi and claimed to the students that he was continuing the services of Loyola Business School. He called himself the chairman of the college. A new name for the college also was coined – Bangalore International College, as mentioned in the college website,” said Emmanuel Attiah.
College illegal: Students
Students allege that the college is running illegally playing with the future of hundreds of foreign students. “Though Loyola Business School in Sanjay Nagar that shut is affiliated to Bangalore University, the college started in Karthik Nagar in Doddanekundi is not. We spoke to the University vice-chancellor twice and he confirmed that the college is not affiliated. He had even warned college chairman Mohammad Assad Malik to refund our fees. But when Malik gave cheques to a few students, the cheques bounced as the account lacked funds,” said Abraham Kwarteng.
