Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley champions Gorkha VC heros cause

Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley has revealed that Victoria Cross hero Tul Bahadar Pun helped save her fathers life during World War II, and has demanded that he be allowed to live in Britain.

London, May 31 : Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley has revealed that Victoria Cross hero Tul Bahadar Pun helped save her father's life during World War II, and has demanded that he be allowed to live in Britain.

Joanna, 61, backed the Mirror's campaign for Pun, who has been banned from the UK despite collecting the British military's highest honour for his heroics in World War Two.

The Indian-born actress told how she felt indebted to the frail 84-year-old who risked his life in 1944 to rescue her dad Captain James from Japanese machine gunners.

Lumley joins Tory Peer and Victoria Cross expert Michael Ashcroft in the the fight to bring Pun back to Britain.

"Irrespective of anything else, this was a man who earned the Victoria Cross in the service of the British. On compassionate and any other grounds, this is somebody that the population of this country would be delighted to have admitted to the UK. To tell him, at the age of 84, to 'bugger off' is despicable," the Daily Mail quoted Ashcroft,as saying.

Lord Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and author of the book Victoria Cross Heroes, has arranged a meeting between his advisers and Pun's London solicitor to try to overturn the decision banning him from the UK.

The elderly Gurkha has heart problems, asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure and requires daily medication - which is not always available in Nepal. He wants to come to Britain to ensure he has a reliable supply of medication and good quality care.

He receives 132 pounds a month as Army pension and has to travel from his mountain home to the Gurkha camp at Pokhara - a day's walk away - to collect it.

Lawyers acting for him, along with 2,000 former Gurkhas, will appeal before the immigration courts in London in August.

Pun earned his VC in Burma on June 23, 1944, after nearly all his comrades had been killed. He grabbed a Bren Gun and, firing-from the hip and running through ankle - deep mud, ignored "shattering" Japanese fire and stormed machine gun positions.

The medal is now thought to be in the Gurkha Museum in Winchester.

ANI