ZoomBangla has sent written questions to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, raising serious allegations about the online appointment system for Indian visas. The letter was sent to both the visa help desk and the general email address of the High Commission. No reply has been received to that letter, sent recently.
It needs to be made clear at the outset that what this report presents are allegations against the Indian High Commission. If a response from the High Commission is received, it will be added to this report.
The letter states that visa appointment slots open only once a week, for a few hours. During that exact window, ordinary applicants run into one technical problem after another. The server shows as busy, OTP codes fail to arrive by mobile or email, the next button does not respond, and even when payment goes through, it is reported to appear against another applicant’s account instead of their own.
For this investigation, ten to fifteen travel agencies were contacted directly. None of them admitted to using any software of their own. They said an applicant’s passport details are used to complete registration, and the form is then sent to an unnamed party whose identity the agencies themselves do not know.
According to the agencies, they use unregistered SIM cards bought from the open market for the mobile number field. These SIMs are inserted into a phone without being activated, and are used across multiple applications. Calls cannot be made on such SIMs, but they said SMS still arrives. Once the OTP comes in, it is forwarded to the same unnamed party.
Applicants are reportedly charged anywhere from ten thousand to one lakh taka to get an appointment through this method, according to the allegations. The official visa service charge, by contrast, is only fifteen hundred taka. Unable to secure an appointment on their own, ordinary applicants are said to be forced toward these agencies.
In its letter, ZoomBangla directly asked the High Commission who has access to the appointment server and database, and whether that access has been reviewed since IVAC’s fraud warning on 1 July. The letter also asked why twenty four hour booking has not been introduced in place of the current once a week window.
On 1 July, IVAC itself issued a notice warning the public about fraud committed in the name of confirming visa appointments. At the same time, applicants lost the ability to choose their own preferred time slot.
The allegations mentioned in this report are based on statements from applicants and travel agencies. No response has been received from the Indian High Commission on the specific questions sent by ZoomBangla. If a reply arrives, it will be published in due course.
