Widow's family stuck in India as visa set to expire
Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for a widow and her children not to be deported to India following the death of her husband.
Sunil Rastogi died on 18 February in Southmead Hospital, Bristol, hours after suffering a cardiac arrest.
His wife Priya Rastogi and their family, who have lived in South Gloucestershire for more than three years, are tied to Sunil's work visa which they depend on to live in the UK, but it expires in August meaning they face deportation.
Mrs Rastogi said: "People are supporting me, they're thinking about me. As a single mum, I feel very strongly to fight for my kids and myself."
Under Home Office rules, Mrs Rastogi, her seven-year-old daughter and eight-week-old son, are set to lose their right to stay in the UK because of his death.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
More news stories for Bristol
Watch the latest Points West
Listen to the latest news for Bristol
Mrs Rastogi returned to India to be with Sunil's family and take part in religious ceremonies following his death, and is now the subject of a petition asking Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to grant them compassionate Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK.
She said: "It's been very tough actually for me, especially with the two children.
"It's not just a loss, it's everything lost - our security, our trust, the future of my child.
"My daughter is missing her school, her pals and her home. Life has turned upside down. It's not about the grief, it's about being displaced."
"Our life is very much over there [the UK]."
An online crowdfunder has so far raised more than £47,750 for the family and petition by a cross-party group of South Gloucestershire councillors has received more than 24,000 signatures.
Filton and Bradley Stoke MP Claire Hazelgrove, said she is trying to get clarity on the visa rules so the family "can plan their future", and has raised their case with the Home Office.
South Gloucestershire councillor Sanjay Shambhu, said Home Secretary Yvette Cooper "has discretion to gift someone the right to remain" in the UK.
He said: "This is a very unfortunate situation with profound impact on this family. A very young family. We're supporting the family.
"This family has been a contributor to our economy, society and community."
Raman Kumar, a family friend, said: "Sunil's vision was to have a future here. He had his first kid in India but he migrated here, he was a taxpayer working hard to build his family here."
North Bristol NHS Trust, which runs Southmead Hospital, said a "comprehensive review" into the circumstances of Mr Rastogi's death is still ongoing, after his family believe he was given minimal medical attention after the cardiac arrest.
Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.
Mother wants to know 'why Daddy was not saved'
Home Office
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Government struggles to cut foreign aid spent on asylum hotels
The government is struggling to cut the amount of foreign aid it spends on hotel bills for asylum seekers in the UK, the BBC has learnt. New figures released quietly by ministers in recent days show the Home Office plans to spend £2.2bn of overseas development assistance (ODA) this financial year - that is only marginally less than the £2.3bn it spent in 2024/25. The money is largely used to cover the accommodation costs of thousands of asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK. The Home Office said it was committed to ending asylum hotels and was speeding up asylum decisions to save taxpayers' money. The figures were published on the Home Office website with no accompanying notification to media. Foreign aid is supposed to be spent alleviating poverty by providing humanitarian and development assistance overseas. But under international rules, governments can spend some of their foreign aid budgets at home to support asylum seekers during the first year after their arrival. According to the most recent Home Office figures, there are about 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels in the UK. Labour promised in its manifesto to "end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds". Contracts signed by the Conservative government in 2019 were expected to see £4.5bn of public cash paid to three companies to accommodate asylum seekers over a 10-year period. But a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) in May said that number was expected to be £15.3bn. Asylum accommodation costs set to triple, says watchdog Asylum hotel companies vow to hand back some profits On June 3, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Home Affairs Committee she was "concerned about the level of money" being spent on asylum seekers' accommodation and added: "We need to end asylum hotels altogether." The Home Office said it was trying to bear down on the numbers by reducing the time asylum seekers can appeal against decisions. It is also planning to introduce tighter financial eligibility checks to ensure only those without means are housed. But Whitehall officials and international charities have said the Home Office has no incentive to reduce ODA spending because the money does not come out of its budgets. The scale of government aid spending on asylum hotels has meant huge cuts in UK support for humanitarian and development priorities across the world. Those cuts have been exacerbated by the government's reductions to the overall ODA budget. In February, Sir Keir Starmer said he would cut aid spending from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% by 2027 - a fall in absolute terms of about £14bn to some £9bn. Such was the scale of aid spending on asylum hotels in recent years that the previous Conservative government gave the Foreign Office an extra £2bn to shore up its humanitarian commitments overseas. But Labour has refused to match that commitment. Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy at the Bond network of development organisations, said: "Cutting the UK aid budget while using it to prop up Home Office costs is a reckless repeat of decisions taken by the previous Conservative government. "Diverting £2.2bn of UK aid to cover asylum accommodation in the UK is unsustainable, poor value for money, and comes at the expense of vital development and humanitarian programmes tackling the root causes of poverty, conflict and displacement. "It is essential that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but the government should not be robbing Peter to pay Paul." Sarah Champion, chair of the International Development Committee, said the government was introducing "savage cuts" to its ODA spending, risking the UK's development priorities and international reputation, while "Home Office raids on the aid budget" had barely reduced. "Aid is meant to help the poorest and most vulnerable across the world: to alleviate poverty, improve life chances and reduce the risk of conflict," she said. "Allowing the Home Office to spend it in the UK makes this task even harder." "The government must get a grip on spending aid in the UK," she said. "The Spending Review needs to finally draw a line under this perverse use of taxpayer money designed to keep everyone safe and prosperous in their own homes, not funding inappropriate, expensive accommodation here." Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: "Labour promised in their manifesto to end the use of asylum hotels for illegal immigrants. But the truth is there are now thousands more illegal migrants being housed in hotels under Labour. "Now these documents reveal that Labour are using foreign aid to pay for asylum hotel accommodation – yet another promise broken." A Home Office spokesperson said: "We inherited an asylum system under exceptional pressure, and continue to take action, restoring order, and reduce costs. This will ultimately reduce the amount of Official Development Assistance spent to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. "We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so that we can end the use of hotels and save the taxpayer £4bn by 2026." Is the government meeting its pledges on illegal immigration and asylum?
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Protect public from vehicle theft epidemic'
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has called on the government to "protect" the public from the "epidemic" of vehicle thefts by ruling out policing budget cuts. Home Office statistics show that nearly 2,500 cases of vehicle thefts were reported in the Thames Valley last year, with fewer than 3% of those resulting in charges. Sir Ed made the comments whilst on a visit to a bicycle repair shop in Thame, Oxfordshire, alongside the Lib Dem MP for Henley and Thame Freddie van Mierlo. The BBC has contacted the Home Office for a response to Sir Ed's comments. Speaking at Thame Cycle, where he and van Mierlo went for a ride of their own, Sir Ed said: "Freddie and I may be the ones on our bikes today, but it is thieves who are taking people for a ride as they steal cars and get away with it." "It is a crime that is immensely damaging to victims, yet few criminals are ever held accountable for their actions. Our police need back up from this government." Van Mierlo added that there was a car theft "epidemic plaguing Oxfordshire". "Thames Valley Police do incredible work, but they're stretched after years of cuts from successive governments," he said. Sir Ed said the government needed to "get a grip" on the crime, adding: "We need our forces around the country to be supported and well-resourced." During the visit, he also called on chancellor Rachel Reeves to "back up" the police by ruling out any budget cuts in the upcoming Spending Review. "Our police must have the resources they need so they can tackle this problem," van Mierlo added. The BBC has contacted the Home Office for a response to the comments, whilst the Treasury said it would not comment on "speculation" regarding the Spending Review. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Spending Review: When is it and what might Rachel Reeves announce? Watch: Police issue warning after keyless car theft Man jailed for role in luxury car theft conspiracy 'In 60 seconds the car was started and stolen' Thames Valley Police
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
The tightrope Farage is walking on race – and why he can only lose
What were Reform playing at this week, apparently allowing their newest MP Sarah Pochin to ask Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions whether he would follow other European countries and consider banning the burka? After all, it seems to have led to the resignation of their successful chairman Zia Yusuf. To answer this question, it is worth looking at Reform's other interventions on cultural issues in recent times. For there have been a number of occasions when senior Reform politicians have brutally engaged in the most sensitive and controversial cultural areas. There is a clear pattern. Just recently, Nigel Farage made clear he felt Lucy Connolly, the mother jailed for posting offensively on social media about the riots that followed the appalling murders of children in Southport, should not be in jail. Last July, Connolly posted on X hours after Axel Rudakubana murdered three girls in a knife rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport. She wrote: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f---ing hotels full of the b------s for all I care, while you're at it, take the treacherous government politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these [Southport] families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.' Politicians from across the political spectrum have said that the punishment meted out to Connolly was disproportionate. Farage went further than most, saying: 'The sentence that was given to her was absolutely excessive and while she should not have said what she said, understand there were millions of mothers at that moment in time after Southport feeling exactly the same way.' The Reform leader also recently said we need to choose which migrants from which countries come to Britain. At the same time, he has been vocal about the grooming gangs that existed across northern England, refusing to condemn some of Elon Musk's increasingly-bizarre social media commentary about the issue at the start of the year (Musk falsely claimed that the Home Office had sent a memo to police ordering them not to investigate alleged abuse because young women had 'made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour'). There are many other examples of Farage seeking to intervene on cultural issues, while carefully walking along a tightrope. In the past, when Farage was merely the most prominent politician in two start-up parties – Ukip and the Brexit Party – his strategy was obvious: simply to generate attention. At that time, he could say things which many (even most) people found offensive, because all that mattered was going up a few points in the polls by attracting small numbers of people who agreed with him. But Reform now engage in these sorts of culturally assertive interventions for a different reason: to provoke a reaction from opposing politicians, putting them in a hopefully impossible position with some of their working-class voters. That mentality was clearly at play when Pochin asked Starmer this week whether he would 'follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others, and ban the burka' – and Yusuf, before he resigned, seemed all too aware of it, writing on social media: 'I do think it's dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn't do'. And for interventions that don't involve a public question to the Prime Minister – such as Farage's pronouncements in speeches and Q&As – Farage and his team know full well that their influence in the media is such that political opponents will be asked for a response. The ideal scenario for Reform is for Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, and their collective MPs to say, no, they do not agree with Reform's latest cultural pronouncement. The resulting clips, usually without the context of Reform's original comments, can look as if the politicians in question were going out of their way to, for example, support Lucy Connolly's imprisonment, or, in this week's case, for the normalisation of the burka. Reform seem to think there is no risk in campaigning like this. They assume their core and prospective voters will not be offended by their own comments, but might be irritated watching opposing parties disagree. And, to be fair, you could see that Starmer did not want to engage on the burka this week, presumably for fear of looking like he was going out of his way to support it. But this is another example of Reform being stuck in their own past. They still campaign like a little party, as if their primary objective was to get to 15 or 20 points in the polls, not to form a government. This week's intervention was a mistake, and not just because it cost them a competent chairman; it risked making the party look eccentric at best and sinister at worst. On the specifics of the burka, the opinion research is hard to read, not least because voters are nervous talking about it. While there has been little recent polling, in 2017, a YouGov survey found that 48 per cent would support a burka ban while 42 per cent would oppose it. My very strong impression is that most voters would not like to see significant numbers of people wearing the burka, because of the physical barrier it places between the wearer and everyone else; it is obviously also something which has barely been seen in this country, even as multi-racial Britain grew post-war. However, if they were asked to consider the implications of a legal ban, I suspect most voters would not want the state to get into the business of policing clothing, because they believe personal choice should be respected (yes, there is a debate about how much choice wearers have, but this will be lost on the majority of voters). Most voters would, in turn, be horrified to see women in burkas being physically barred from particular places, let alone arrested. While 'classical liberalism' in Britain is dying – and with it the belief in a small state – this would still cross a line for most people. More broadly, this cultural intervention, and others like it, will only dissuade Reform's next set of target voters to back them. Given their objective is to form a government, they need to get to 35 points at least in the polls to give them a chance (they are currently probably just shy of 30 points). This means significantly expanding from their base of disaffected working-class voters (who will always be their most important) and going after people who only recently voted Tory or Labour. The primary barrier, for these voters, is absolutely not that Reform is insufficiently Right-wing, or insufficiently patriotic, or culturally assertive. The primary barrier for them is whether or not Reform looks professional, mainstream (of sorts), and will focus on things that really matter and that other parties fail to engage on. This group of voters will not vote for a party which looks like a European populist party, or indeed the Trump administration. A recent poll suggested Reform's lead over Labour had narrowed by a couple of points. You cannot make this assertion from one poll; polls move all the time. But there is no doubt Reform has had a bad couple of weeks. Firstly, their implausible mini policy package which promised massive spending paid for by cutting waste; and now a pointless row over the burka which appears to have cost them a chairman. Their focus on cutting conventional immigration, changing asylum laws, stopping small boats, reducing the influence of woke and getting the police focused on real crime will appeal to most voters; and the other parties are struggling badly to answer these policy challenges. When it comes to winning over the public, they would be well advised to stay focused on these issues and leave the cultural commentary to others. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
