British Asian student threatened for deportation for being 'Pak citizen'

LONDON: A British Asian was held in a detention centre for nearly two months and threatened with deportation because Home Office officials thought he was a Pakistan citizen.

Immigration officials assumed that Sabbir Ahmed was a Pakistani despite the fact that he was born in Blackburn and has a British passport. His parents came from India but have British citizenship.

34-year-old Ahmed, an accountancy student at the University of Leicester finished serving a two-month prison sentence last September after he was arrested for a driving offence. Later he was suspected to be a foreign national and held for deportation.

"It was so frustrating, it just felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I was screaming my innocence to anyone who would listen and they were trying to deport me to a country where I've got no ties," Ahmed said.

He was asked to provide documents proving his nationality but was unable to do so because his passport was at his flat in east London and he could not leave Haslar detention centre in Gosport, Hampshire.