The government is trying to locate hundreds of foreign students who are living in Britain after coming to the UK to study at bogus colleges, a news report said yesterday.

Amid stepped up pressure from the opposition Conservative Party, the authorities arc trying to hunt for nearly 4,000 foreign students who are living in the country after arriving to study at bogus colleges, whose licences have been revoked by the government, The Independent newspaper reported.

The Tories have flayed (he ruling Labour for not taking the problem seriously enough. Despite the government's claims to have tightened up the student visa system, they have failed to crack down on high numbers

of "bogus" students who are already here, Damian Green, the Conservative Party's immigration spokesman, was quoted as saying by the British daily.

The opposition said those students who entered the UK before 1 April 2009 and were enrolled at a bogus college had entered the UK on fraudulent purposes. According to the Home Office, the total number of foreign students who enrolled at colleges which have subsequently been refused a sponsor licence by the U K Border Agency is about 3,940.

Earlier, the British House of Commons was informed that there could be a large number of bogus students enrolled in over 2.000 colleges in Britain amid fears that people recruited into terrorism may have used these institutions as a means to get into the country.