PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA - Trouble is brewing between a travel agent and the sole Indian visa-processing agency here over the issuance of cancelled visa stickers to a group of Malaysians travelling to India.

G.S. Travels Sdn Bhd director S. Gandhi said seven of his clients on their way to India were told by staff at the Air India check-in counter at KL International Airport that they could not travel to the sub-continent because their visas had been reported missing by the Indian High Commission.

Apparently, the commission had informed airline companies that visa stickers from numbers one to 2,000 had been cancelled because they had gone missing.

'It is shocking that our clients were issued some of the missing stickers,' said Gandhi, when contacted.

He said his clients were angry and upset over not being able to travel to India as planned.

All Indian visas in Malaysia are processed by the Grand Lotus India Visa Centre, which was appointed by the commission to do the job.

When contacted, Grand Lotus director K. Thangavelu, who was away attending a conference in the Philippines, said his company would take responsibility if the travel agency produced receipts issued for the visas.

'I am also shocked as I can't understand how the travel agency obtained these visas. But we are prepared to take full responsibility if they can produce the official receipts issued by us for the visas,' said Thangavelu.

However, Gandhi said his company never kept the receipts after the passports with the visas were handed over to their clients.

'We have been doing this for 20 years as our main concern is obtaining the visas and once this is done we discard the receipts,' he said.

He added the visa-processing agency must take full responsibility as it was the only outlet processing visa applications to India.

An official from the Indian High Commissions visa division, who declined to be named, said the matter had been brought to his attention.

'I cannot comment on this as the only person who can issue a statement is the first secretary in charge of consular affairs, S.K Mehrotra,' he added.

Mehrotra could not be contacted at press time.