As a local shopkeeper, Pandya had supported at least 50 vulnerable families with free food deliveries during Covid
London: An Indian honoured by Queen Elizabeth II for supporting 50 families with free food during the Covid-19 pandemic, faces deportation to India after losing an immigration appeal in the UK, an IANS report. In The Triune says
Vimal Pandya, 42, had come on a study visa from India in 2011. But the UK Home Office revoked his college’s right to sponsor foreign students three years later, the Daily Mail reported.
Since then, Pandya, who lives in Rotherhithe, south London, has spent the last nine years fighting to remain in the UK.
As a local shopkeeper, Pandya had supported at least 50 vulnerable families with free food deliveries during Covid, which earned him a letter of thanks from the Queen’s personal representative in London.
But now he has just a few weeks left before he is forced to fly back to India, after a judge said that Pandya has been working in the UK “illegally for many years”.
“I can’t sleep at night because of this endless torture and misery. They can deport me at any time and send me back home – it’s really scary,” Pandya had told Daily Mail last year.
Local community members as well as people from across the UK have come out strongly in support of Pandya, with hundreds attending demonstrations to support him. An online petition to reinstate his visa has gained more than 1,75,000 signatures.
Pandya now has a maximum of 28 days from the date of the verdict, which was given on January 24, to decide whether he wishes to challenge the judge’s decision. After which he will be at risk of removal by the Home Office.
Local community members as well as people from across the UK have come out strongly in support of Pandya, with hundreds attending demonstrations to support him. An online petition to reinstate his visa has gained more than 1,75,000 signatures.
Originally a stockbroker, Pandya had enrolled in a management course with a college in the UK in 2011, but after paying the fees, it went out of business.
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