By IANS,
Melbourne : An Indian journalist, who was working undercover to expose migration and education scams in Australia, was assaulted over the weekend.
The scribe was attacked when she was working on a report for the Four Corners programme, ABC News online reported Monday.
“The woman was subjected to threats during the making of the programme and was attacked over the weekend. Police have been notified,” the report said. The journalist was not identified.
She went to two different migration agents posing as someone wanting to pass an English language test without having the skills, and said she was willing to buy a fake work certificate.
She was able to do both if she paid between $3,000 and $5,000.
The programme aims to “expose a number of cases where students have lost tens of thousands of dollars”.
The family of Prabmeet Singh, a student, spent more than $40,000 on a course at the Sydney flying school Aerospace Aviation.
His mother Pushpinder Kaur said the family is now broke and her son still has not the pilot’s licence.
“It is a fraud. We were shown so many rosy pictures about the school and it is not what it is really, it was just a scam,” Kaur was quoted as saying.
“I think the government should be more alert in these type of matters because it is the career of the children which is at stake.”
Other Indian students have told Four Corners programme that the aviation college failed to deliver its promised 200 hours of flying time over 52 weeks.
Aerospace Aviation’s spokeswoman Sue Davis has defended the training and has questioned the level of commitment and dedication among the particular students, the report said.
The programme also reveals unscrupulous practices by migration and education agents.