The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) would not take any responsibility for the loss suffered by students due to sudden suspension of the student visa applications from Bangladesh, its official said yesterday.

The agency, however, would scrutinise the pending student visa applications, UKBA Operations Manager Stuart Percival at the British High Commission said at a press conference at a hotel in Sylhet.

He said the British authority gave licences to some selected institutions to enroll students from Bangladesh and other regions under the 'Tier Four'

of the Points Based system.

But the licences of 146 institutions were cancelled while the decision to suspend the student visa appli-cations was taken on Ianuary28,hesaid.

"These institutions along with others fulfilled all the requirements at the time of taking licences, but they either got engaged with wrongdoings or for some other reasons they had to lose the licences later,” he said, adding that the wrongdoings were found during investigations.

"An unexpected surge in the number of student visa applications was the main reason for suspension of the visa applications.

It was just beyond our ability to scrutinise those,” Stuart Percival said.

He also said that all the submitted applications would be scrutinised very soon.

"We want to ensure that genuine students continue to go to the UK colleges and other institutions for higher education."

The students who have already reached the UK are allowed to change their institutions, if needed, said the UKBA official.

This is a temporary suspension and the UK Border Agency will begin accepting Tier 4 visa applications again as soon as possible, he hinted.

About 75 percent of the student visa applications were from the greater Sylhet region, the official said.

The tier 4 of the Points Based System was introduced in March 2009.