Yemeni students in city under Goa police scanner

Yemeni students in city under Goa police scanner
Preetu Nair | TNN

Panaji: An institute teaching foreign students how to speak better English shouldn’t be a security concern. But then again schools teaching students how to fly planes wasn’t in the pre-9/11 era. The fact that there is an institute in Goa’s capital city with 42 Yemenese students, all with poor attendance record, has security agencies alarmed in the in the wake of the consecutive serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Police say the presence of so many students with “dodgy” credentials from a country known to have contributed substantial number of footsoldiers to Al-Qaida’s jehad is worrying, but the school authorities, while admitting that 42 of the 44 students were from Yemen, say there is nothing illegal or alarming about it.
However, Goa police have written to various state government authorities as well as the Goa University drawing their attention to the functioning of ‘Fluency Academy’ located in a commercial building on 18th June Road.
“We are verifying to ensure that there is no terrorist angle. Things are not in order in the institute and we want to be sure that it is not a front for any terrorist organisation. Prevention is better than cure,” North Goa SP Bosco George told TOI.
Police officials said that this is perhaps the first instance of its kind where Arabs are coming on student visas to study in an educational institute that is not recognized by any government or university body. All the institute has is a trade license from the Corporation of City of Panaji. Even that licence, obtained on November 30, 2007, expired on March 31, 2008. The Panaji police have now written to the CCP asking to explain on what basis the CCP gave the license to the institute. ‘Yemeni students have very poor attendance’
Panaji: A private institute in Panaji which has 42 Yemeni students is under the police scanner.
The institute is not recognized by the government, not affiliated to any university. Yemen is known to have sent a number of terrorists for Al-Qaida’s jehad.
“They have not obtained any NOC from the state government nor has Goa University issued any affiliation to the institute. Such institutes operating in the state are a big problem and we are trying to put a mechanism in place to keep a check on such institutes,” said director of higher education Bhaskar Nayak.
Fluency Academy runs three courses to “teach English”.
They are of three months, six months and nine months duration and the fee is just Rs 1,000 a month apart from Rs 600 for registration.
Panaji police inspector Francis Corte said they had
checked the attendance of the 42 Yemenese students and found them to be “very poor”.
The police are now probing what these students have been up to.
“With the increasing threat perception in the state, we want to be sure that these students are really here to study,” he said.
Corte tried to downplay the alarm in security circles saying it was just a “a preventive exercise”.
He, however, added that the police were in the process of identifying other institutes that are not recognized and have foreign students.
The police started probing the institute after they received a letter from the consul of Saudi Arabia stating that the number of Saudis and other foreign nationals residing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been applying for grant of student visas to learn the English language on the basis of certificates issued by Fluency Academy.
Director of the institute, Nashima Beig, said, “We have 44 students, of which 42 are from Yemen and two from India.”
She denied her students were a security threat and claimed that somebody was trying to ruin the institute’s reputation.
“Our institute is legal and we issue diploma certificates to the students after they finish the course. We have recently applied to CCP for renewal of the license and also to the state government for recognition,” added Beig.

2008 Jul 28 Times Of India Goa