Woman’s info in inter-faith passport row under lens

Lucknow: A new turn has taken place in the passport row concerning an inter-faith couple in Lucknow.

The passport issued to the wife, Tanvi Seth, will now be investigated by the local intelligence unit (LIU) and if any discrepancy is found in the information provided by her, the passport could be revoked. A person who claimed to be an eyewitness to the dispute between the couple and the passport official has claimed that he was kidnapped before he could speak in favour of the official.

It may be recalled that the passports of Tanvi Seth and her husband Mohd Anas had been held back by a passport official, Vikas Misra, who reportedly asked the husband to convert to Hinduism. The couple informed the external affairs minister Susha Swaraj about their problem through Twitter and the external affairs ministry immediately sought information on the matter. The following day, the couple was called to the passport office and handed over their passport while the erring official, Vikas Misra, was transferred to Gorakhpur.

In a related development, one Kuldeep Singh who claims to be an eyewitness to the fracas between the inter-faith couple and the passport official claims he was kidnapped by unknown persons on Saturday afternoon and was being taken to Nepal in a SUV.

He said that when the kidnappers stopped for dinner at Gola, he managed to escape and reached the Sansarpur police outpost.

He was brought to Lucknow on Sunday morning. Kuldeep said that he was scheduled to address press in support of the accused passport official.  SSP Lucknow Deepak Kumar said, “Claims of Kuldeep, the eyewitness  hasn’t been confirmed.”

He is supporting Vikas Misra and he has also said an abduction attempt was made on him. All this is totally unconfirmed right now and we are looking into the matter.”

The passport official Vikas Misra had told reporters on Friday that he had objected to misleading information given in the application form. He said that the couple stayed in Noida, but were applying for passport from Lucknow instead of Ghaziabad, which is their jurisdiction.

Moreover, he said that the woman used multiple names in various documents and could not explain the reason for doing so. Vikas Misra has been getting support on the social media and well-known folk singer Malini Awasthi has also come out in his support.