Home Office allows Sri Lankan scientist to remain in the UK

THE Home Office has taken a U-turn on its plans to deport a leading Sri Lankan scientist and allowed him and his family to remain in the UK, The Guardian reported.

Dr Nadarajah Muhunthan, who has done groundbreaking research into affordable forms of solar energy, and his family faced deportation to Sri Lanka where he experienced torture.

Earlier, the Home Office rejected the asylum claim lodged by Dr Muhunthan, 47, who has been living in the UK since 2018 with his wife, Sharmila, 42, and their three children, aged 13, nine and five, The Guardian report said.

Dr Muhunthan, who is working on thin-film photovoltaic devices used to generate solar energy, was given a prestigious Commonwealth Rutherford fellowship.

The award allowed him to come to the UK for two years to research and develop the technology. He was based at the University of Bristol. His wife got a job caring for elderly people in a nursing home.

The couple’s eldest daughter, Gihaniya, has received outstanding school reports in the UK with a 100 per cent attendance rate and has been particularly praised for her achievements in science. She hopes to study to be a doctor when she is older.

The family are Tamils, a group that has experienced persecution in Sri Lanka.

However, just weeks after The Guardian highlighted the case, the Home Office changed its mind and has now granted Muhunthan and his family refugee status.

“The Home Office has saved my life and my family’s lives. Now I will be able to continue my research without fear,” Dr Muhunthan was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

According to the report, Prof David J Firmin, head of the electro-chemistry and solar team at the University of Bristol where Muhunthan was conducting research, wrote to the Home Office at the end of October expressing his “deepest concern”.

He said Muhunthan’s work was making a significant contribution to efforts to decarbonise the energy generation sector.

In November 2019, Muhunthan returned to his home country for a short visit to see his sick mother. While he was there, he was arrested and persecuted by the Sri Lankan government. He managed to escape and returned to the UK, where he claimed asylum on the basis of what he had experienced on his visit to Sri Lanka.

After his scholarship expired in February 2020, neither he nor his wife were permitted to continue working.

The family’s lawyer, Naga Kandiah of MTC solicitors, told The Guardian:“This is an important victory which recognises there is systematic torture of Tamils going on in Sri Lanka. This scientist and his family will all be assets to the UK.”