“They [officials at VFS] sent me away saying that my medical insurance is all wrong. I got new insurance just because they asked me to have it. And, when I came back with their suggested one, they said, ‘oh sorry, the insurance you showed earlier was valid.’ I did not know how to react to this irresponsible behaviour, particularly after being awake the whole night,” Palki Ahmed told this correspondent.
The 28-year-old lined up in front of the VFS Global Centre, situated at Delta Life Tower, Gulshan, from 2am on May 5 so that she could get a “token” to enter the office to submit her application when it opens its doors at 9am.
The token, also known as serial number, allows applicants to submit their documents for applications for Schengen visas. “I had to remain awake for the whole night in front of this VFS office since I could not get inside earlier on consecutive days during official hours,” she added.
VFS Global Centre is the company to which processing for Schengen visa applications was outsourced, supposedly to make things easier for the applicants.
A notice was seen at this VFS centre on Thursday stating: “From May 11 [Sunday], 40 visa applicants will be received.” Applications will be received on a first come-first serve basis, the notice also said.
Prior to the posting of this notice, the VFS office only allowed 20 applications per day.
That notice, however, was seen nowhere on Sunday morning.
Moreover, on Sunday morning, a G4S security guard named Zahid, who was appointed to the VFS Global office, told the crowd waiting outside that the Swedish embassy had changed their mind and asked the VFS centre to receive only 20 applications.
The announcement was made around 10am while people still waiting in queue for a token. Most of these people had been waiting from at least 5am on Sunday, with some of them even having camped out since Saturday night.
One applicant, Nafis Ahmed, asked Zahid why a group, one of whom gave his name to this correspondent as Mustafa, had been allowed to get in without any sort of token.
Zahid denied the allegation and said no person was allowed to get in without a token.
However, Mustafa and around a dozen others, all who arrived at the office around 8:30am, were all allowed to enter with the other 20 applicants, who obtained tokens, as the office opened at 9am.
The waiting applicants asked the guard to show them how many tokens had been assigned, alleging that more than 13 people outside the quota of 20 were allowed to enter without any token.
Meanwhile, officials at the Embassy of Sweden confirmed to this correspondent that the embassy had not revised its decision regarding receiving extra applications. They said the VFS was supposed to receive 40 applications for Schengen visas from Sunday.
When Mustafa left the VFS building around 10:30am, he told the Dhaka Tribune that he had been allowed to go in without any sort of token as he “managed it with VFS officials on Thursday [May 8].”
When he attended the office on Thursday, after speaking with the VFS officials, he “managed” to secure his entry to the office on Sunday without any token.
Saleh Ahmed of Bandhu Welfare Society, who has been trying to submit an application for a Schengen visa for three consecutive working days, said: “It is frustrating to see how we are being held hostage by the officials concerned who are supposed to help us in filing our applications for the visa.”
Another applicant, Hasib Bin Islam, said it was evident that the responsible officials “hid” the rest of the 20 tokens without giving them to the applicants who were following the procedure by waiting in the queue.
He suggested that that bribery was perhaps for the entry of those who did not have tokens.
Despite several attempts by the correspondent, the VFS officials concerned could not be contacted.