Nine months after the Air India crash took his wife and toddler daughter, Mohammadmiya Sethwala is fighting a new battle, this time with immigration authorities in the UK.
The 28-year-old Vadodara native received an email from the UK Home Office this month rejecting his application to stay on in the country. The authorities have granted him immigration bail until April 22, giving him until then to exit the UK and return to India.
Sethwala is not giving up without a fight. His solicitor is preparing to move an application before a local UK court to vacate the bail order. If the court grants relief, Sethwala says he will be able to apply afresh for a new visa.
His story begins well before the crash. Sethwala had moved to the UK in 2022 on a dependent visa with his wife Sadiqa, who had come to pursue a course in International Business Management. The couple came from financially modest backgrounds. Their neighbours had pooled money to help them fulfil their UK dream.
In April last year, the couple shifted to Rugby in England, where Sadiqa had landed a job. She was serving a three-month probation period before receiving her work permit. She had also arranged a job for Sethwala.
The two had begun planning their future, paying back their neighbours and settling down in the UK.
Within a month of joining her new workplace, Sadiqa applied for leave to travel to Vadodara with their daughter Fatima to attend the wedding of Sethwala’s younger brother. The couple had wanted to travel together, but their manager would not grant both simultaneous leave. Sadiqa flew with Fatima. The tickets on the ill-fated flight had been pre-booked.
The Boeing 787-8 crashed minutes after taking off from Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, bound for London. It hit a medical college hostel building and burst into flames, killing 260 people. Sadiqa and Fatima were among the dead.
When news of the crash reached Sethwala, he resigned from his job, a condition his employer had put forth, and rushed to India. After days of waiting, the mortal remains of Sadiqa and Fatima were handed over to the family.
He returned to the UK at the end of June. Back in their apartment, he broke down.
The house, he revealed to a media outlet, still carried the scent of his wife and daughter: their clothes, their belongings, the echo of nursery rhymes.
He could not sleep. At the insistence of friends, he consulted a private psychiatrist and shifted to London, where cousins and friends have since looked after him.
He tried to reapply for a visa and find employment that could process a work permit, but nothing came through. His dependent visa expired in January. His solicitor told him he did not qualify under the bereaved spouse category, as it was a rare situation where a plane crash had killed a resident UK visa holder.
Air India had reached out to him, offering employment at the Taj Group of Hotels in London. But with his visa already expired, he had to turn it down.
Sethwala had cleared his Company Secretary foundation course and was working in taxation when the couple decided to move to the UK. He says it was Sadiqa’s dream of a better life that brought them there. She had completed her CA foundation course before leaving India. Now, he says, his priority is to repay the neighbours who helped them.
He told the media house that returning to India is not something he can bring himself to do. Seeing his family, the children at home, Sadiqa’s mother (who is also his maternal aunt) would be a constant reminder of what he has lost. He said he never got to see Sadiqa and Fatima one last time, and is not sure whether the investigation report, whenever it comes, will bring him any closure.
Staying in the UK with his cousins and friends, he feels, will help him focus on rebuilding his life.
Also Read: Air India Plane Crash: With Data Still Inconclusive, Should Judgment On Crew Wait? https://www.vibesofindia.com/air-india-plane-crash-with-data-still-inconclusive-should-judgment-on-crew-wait/
