{"id":20868,"date":"2026-04-24T06:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/20868\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:25:16","slug":"i-lost-my-wife-and-daughter-in-the-air-india-crash-now-im-being-told-to-leave-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/20868\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I lost my wife and daughter in the Air India crash. Now I\u2019m being told to leave UK\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mohammad Shethwala and his wife Sadikabanu Tapeliwala were a young couple with a dream, selling everything they had and borrowing money off neighbours to fund a move from India to Britain, where she had been admitted for a Masters at Ulster University\u2019s London campus.<\/p>\n

She graduated in 2023, the same year they had their first child Fatima, and both husband and wife found enough work to slowly build a life together, even sending small amounts back home to support the family and friends who had believed in them. <\/p>\n

On 12 June last year, in a matter of seconds, their bright future disappeared in a fiery crash next to an airport in western India. Tapeliwala and two-year-old Fatima were on board Air India Flight 171, which came down shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 260 people including all but one of those on board. <\/p>\n

Shethwala, who was back in London at the time, was devastated. Now, 10 months on, he is faced with another loss: the prospect of being forced to leave the UK, the country where he says every memory of his young family was made. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have already lost them,\u201d the 28-year-old tells The Independent in an interview. \u201cI want to hold on to the dream at least and fulfil it, to honour the memories I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MohammadMohammad Shethwala, 28, lost his wife in Air India crash in June last year (Supplied)<\/p>\n

When Tapeliwala was granted her student visa in 2022, Shethwala joined her in Britain as a dependant. Their route to the UK<\/a>, he says, was financed not by wealth but by sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not have money at the time to afford education in the UK,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople in our neighbourhood lent some money. Both our mothers also sold their jewellery, their life savings, to send us abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

His father ran a small shop in India, earning no more than Rs 10,000 ( \u00a378) to Rs 15,000 (\u00a3118) a month. Tapeliwala\u2019s father sold goods door-to-door by bicycle.<\/p>\n

Once in Britain, the couple worked relentlessly. His wife\u2019s student visa limited her hours, Shethwala says, so he took multiple jobs, including delivery work. They spent their first year paying back the debt to those neighbours and friends. \u201cAfter that, we were able to support both families,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At first, they had not planned to settle permanently. But Britain began to look less like a stopgap and more like a home.<\/p>\n

\"MohammadMohammad Shethwala moved to the UK with his wife Sadikabanu Tapeliwala in 2022 for her further education (Supplied)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we spent some time here, we decided it would be wise to settle here,\u201d he said. \u201cOur family background in India was not strong. But since moving here, we were able to support both her family and mine. We would not have managed it in India.\u201d<\/p>\n

By spring 2025, the family\u2019s plans appeared to be falling into place. According to Shethwala, his wife had secured work connected to her studies and was preparing to switch into the Skilled Worker visa route after probation. The move would have given the family a more secure footing.<\/p>\n

Then came a family wedding in India. Because both adults were working, they had hoped to travel together, he says, but could not get leave at the same time. He stayed behind. His wife and daughter went ahead.<\/p>\n

On the morning Tapeliwala and Fatima were due to return to Britain, he says he called them to check in.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was at the airport,\u201d he says. \u201cMy family were urging that I leave my daughter behind with them [in India]. My wife asked me if I should. But I was hesitant. My daughter was already away from me for a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheirTheir daughter, Fatima who was born in the UK in 2023, also died in the plane crash in India (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Fatima, he recalled, was crying at the airport. His wife said she had to go, to complete their check-in, and that she would call again once she was seated on the plane.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat call never came,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Later that day, as he prepared to collect them from the airport, messages began arriving about a crash. He phoned the friend who had booked the tickets. Then came confirmation from multiple sources: it was the same flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was speechless,\u201d he said. \u201cI could not grapple with what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 travelling from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, crashed <\/a>shortly after take-off and struck a medical college building on the ground. Alongside 241 passengers and crew, 19 people were killed on the ground.<\/p>\n

Shethwala booked the first available flight to India, and until he reached there relatives tried to shield him from the worst news, insisting his wife and daughter were safe and in hospital.<\/p>\n

\"\"(EPA)<\/p>\n

When he arrived in Ahmedabad and went to the civil hospital, staff asked for a blood sample.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assumed, if they are taking my blood sample, it is to identify the body,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Doctors informed him there had been only one survivor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A friend who had travelled with him then admitted the truth. \u201cWe did not tell you,\u201d Shethwala recalled being told, \u201cbecause we wanted you to reach India safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

His daughter\u2019s remains were handed over to the family on 17 June. His wife\u2019s followed later, on 21 June.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was given in a coffin,\u201d he says. \u201cI did not open the coffin before cremation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For days, he said, he could not accept what had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a nightmare and that at any moment, I will wake up and find them both right in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, as he describes it, another blow followed the first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment I managed to stabilise, the visa issue came like a dagger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Because his immigration status depended on his wife\u2019s visa route, her death left his own future uncertain. According to Shethwala, had she lived, the family expected to move onto a Skilled Worker visa. He says he still has her job offer letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my wife were alive, we would have had the skilled worker visa,\u201d he said. \u201cThings would have been different.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later applied for Further Leave to Remain on compassionate grounds, arguing that his circumstances were exceptional. A psychiatric report detailing his mental health was submitted with the application, he says.<\/p>\n

\"AA man takes visuals of a charred building at the accident site of Air India flight AI171 that crashed into a residential area near the airport on June 12 in Ahmedabad (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

But on 9 April, around nine months after the crash, he received notice that his application had been refused. He says he was then granted temporary immigration bail while expected to leave the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not given an opportunity to even appeal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has not publicly commented on the individual case, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.<\/p>\n

In reported correspondence, officials are said to have maintained that Shethwala\u2019s circumstances did not meet the threshold for exceptional leave to remain in Britain and that support, including mental healthcare and family connections, would be available in India.<\/p>\n

As Shethwala describes spending sleepless nights in a flat once filled with nursery rhymes, he is speaking to lawyers about whether he has any recourse to appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe this is a genuine humanitarian case and request fair and kind consideration,\u201d says Ayush S Rajpal, case manager at Chionuma Law.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur client has lived in the UK for four years and built his life there with his wife,\u201d he tells The Independent. \u201cHe is working and settled, and it would be very difficult for him to find similar work in India. After losing his wife, he is facing financial and emotional difficulties and is under psychiatric care. In these circumstances, we kindly request that he be allowed to remain in the UK on compassionate grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BuildingBuilding of BJ medical college damaged after the Air India plane crash (Namita Singh\/The Independent)<\/p>\n

Shethwala says returning to India would not bring peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy relatives kept saying, \u2018What will you do in London? Just return,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut to leave the country for me is to also leave those memories bound to this place.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he is not trying to exploit a loophole or rewrite the rules. He says he simply wants time: time to work, time to recover, time to remain in the place where the future he and his wife imagined briefly felt possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9643,5400,6355,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-20868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-aviation","9":"tag-death","10":"tag-horizontal","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116458259899443661","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}