Recalled envoy alerts students going to Canada

New Delhi: Indians hoping to study in Canada should think twice because many students have ended up in substandard colleges with no job prospects despite spending lakhs of rupees, resulting in depression and suicide, India's top envoy there says.

"At one point of time in my tenure, at least two bodies of students were being sent to India in body bags per week," Sanjay Verma, who served as India's high commissioner to Canada from 2022, he said recently. Rather than face their parents after failure, "they were committing suicide".

Verma returned to India earlier this month amid a flaming diplomatic row with Canada over the Khalistani separatist issue. He and five other diplomats were named "person of interest" by Canada, meaning they were to be interrogated in a murder investigation into the 2023 killing of a Canadian citizen named by India as a Khalistani terrorist.