The applicants who had their interview appointments in the British High Commission in Dhaka on May 23 and 24, the two days when the high commission remained closed, have also been told to go back to the Sylhet visa office for a rescheduled date.

The Sylhet office, which processes 150 applicants for interviews a day, is the only office to have been kept closed by the British authorities on security concerns. The British High Commission in Baridhara was re-opened yesterday although its Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) office in Dhaka remained open all along.

"We are still assessing the situation but are hopeful of opening the Sylhet office soon," a high commission official told The Daily Star yesterday, asking not to be named.

Sources, however, said the wait is likely to run till the end of the week as the Awami League's announcement of a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Sylhet on Thursday has made security more vulnerable.

Naim Bakht, a businessman from Sylhet, who has been in Dhaka since May 21 for an appointment for visitor visa interview on May 23, describes his predicament: "My elder brother is having serious heart troubles in London and is scared of the operation so I immediately need to be with him."

"I don't know what to do now, even if I go back to Sylhet now the office will be closed and I am not sure if it will open soon as the bomb blast happened in Sylhet," added Bakht.

Shamsul Haq, who was to give the visa interview also on May 23, met a similar fate. "I have waited for three months to get this interview and now it has been pushed back again, it's frustrating. But, I do understand how they feel about the bomb, so I will have to cope with it."

Scores of others like Shamsul Haq, who had applied for a special work permit visa, hail from Sylhet, home to around half of Bangla-deshis living in the UK.

The VFS office also had to deal with rescheduling difficulties.

Two monks from a monastery in Chittagong, Dharmeshwar and Buddhapriya Bhikkhu, said they will miss the religious programme they planned to attend on May 27 as their date of interview has been pushed back from May 24 to June 1.

Officials at the Dhaka VFS said that they have no alternative but to reschedule the dates since the interview schedules at the high commission are always packed. However, for urgent matters such as medical treatment, they are making exceptions. They are also providing students with a document of explanation to deal with their enrolments.