Air India Express — Refund not given

I had booked a flight from mumbai to dubai in june 2021, during covid times, suddenly UAE government declared restrictions for international travellers and hence it was understandable that flight has been cancelled. I have been trying to get in touch with air india for almost a year now being april 2022 currently and their customer support only said that they won’t refund me back my money OR they will charge more than half the flight ticket amount as cancellation charges, which is completely unjust to the general public as it is no fault of me as a consumer if the flight was cancelled due to government restrictions. When i booked my flight with emirates and the same scene happened because of govt restriction, they refunded me back the entire amount without charging me a single penny. This is completely unjustified on Air india’s part. I expect a full refund in this case. This is a person’s hard earned money. Please help me get my entire amount of ticket as refund.