Sign up to our free newsletter for the top North Wales stories sent straight to your e-mail Sign up now! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

An “exceptionally able and diligent” student who is just three months from finishing her degree is set to be sent back to her native Sri Lanka after being arrested by the Home Office.

Shiromini Satkunarajah, 20, who has lived in the UK for almost a decade and studies at Bangor University, was arrested along with her mother Roshani on Tuesday February 21 and locked in the cells at Caernarfon police station.

They were then told their the application for a study visa had been refused and they were transferred to Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre near Bedford on the evening of Thursday February 23.

Miss Satkunarajah and her mother have been booked on a flight to Sri Lanka on February 28 by the Home Office.

She told the Daily Post: “I didn’t expect them to not send the decision to my home.

“To get the decision after being arrested was a shock.

“I have no family in Sri Lanka. My mother has two siblings in Canada and one in Germany.

“For me, the UK is where I spent my life since I was 12, and I have an emotional attachment to this country.

“For them to say they are putting me in cells is very sad.”

Miss Satkunarajah, who will be 21 next month, has been in the UK since she was 12 as a dependant on her late father Stakunarajah Aiyampillai’s student visa.

Mr Aiyampillai died in 2011, just after he had applied for an extension to his original study visa.

Miss Satkunarajah was eventually granted stay to finish her secondary education and applied for a study visa when she entered Bangor University to study electrical engineering in 2014.

She is expected to get a first after excelling in her studies, according to Iestyn Pierce, Bangor’s head of electrical engineering.

“Over the years I have known her, she has proven to be exceptionally able and diligent,” he said.

“She is registered on a four-year MEng degree, with only a few weeks remaining of her third year of study and the option of graduating this summer with a BEng degree.

“I have no doubt that, in either scenario (BEng or MEng), Shiromini would achieve first class honours.”

After a series of appeals, her application for leave to finish her education has now been denied.

MP Hywel Williams criticised the “unduly severe“ decision.

He said: “Her imminent deportation is not only unjust and unfair but will deprive Wales and indeed the UK economy of the contribution she will make.

“Sri Lanka is still a very dangerous place and Shiromini has had no real ties with the country since she was a child.

“With only three months left on her academic course, it seems unduly severe to curtail her studying at Bangor, uproot her family and expect her to carry on as usual back in Sri Lanka where, as I understand it, there is no comparable course that would enable her to graduate.”