Canada's immigration minister Sean Fraser has said that international students who are not found to be involved in the immigration-related fraud will not face deportation.

Preliminary 'Temporary Resident Permits' will be issued, if these are required, in order to prevent an imminent deportation for anyone under review, he added.

As reported earlier by TOI, hundreds of students, largely from Punjab, have been caught in an immigration-related scam.

Letters of acceptance from educational institutions submitted as part of their study permit applicationfor entry into Canada were later detected as fraudulent.A local agent in India has duped these students.However, Fraser did add that there could be some students who knowingly aided and abetted this fraud, and they after due process would face deportation.

Facts will underline how each case will be dealt with.

Few dozen people have been subject to removal orders, he said.

"If the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with a genuine intent to study, and without knowledge of the use of fraudulent documentation, I have provided instructions for officers to issue a Temporary Resident Permit to that individual.

This will ensure that these well-intentioned students can remain in Canada, and are not subject to the 5-year ban from re-entering Canada that normally follows in cases of misrepresentation.

While this process runs its course, preliminary Temporary Resident Permits will be issued if they are required to prevent an imminent deportation."He said all applicants must ensure that before applying for a study permit they do their research.

He called upon international students to report fraud, if they believed that they have been deceived by an unscrupulous consultant.01:34700 Indian students in Canada face deportation