Lucknow passport officer transferred after insulting inter-faith couple

The ordeal of an inter-faith couple from Aminabad, who were questioned by Regional Passport Office (Lucknow) staffer for their marriage, ended on Thursday with the concerned officer being shifted and a show cause notice being served on to him. 

Rectifying the mistake, Regional Passport Officer Pitush Verma issued passports to the couple.

“The matter has been resolved. The couple has been issued new passports on Thursday. The officer has been transferred and a show cause notice has been served on him,” Verma told reporters flanked by Anas Siddiqui and his wife Tanvi Seth at the RPO-L on Thursday.

Verma said that they have sent a report to External Affairs ministry about the incident and action was being taken against the erring officer.

 “We sincerely apologise to the couple for the incident and assure the people that such incidents would not be repeated in future,” Verma said while stressing that staffers and officers were subjected to counselling sessions and asked to be friendly with the people seeking passport.

Showing their new passports, Siddiqui and Seth expressed satisfaction over the action taken by the RPO-L.

“The harassment we underwent at the RPL on Wednesday was very disturbing and it forced us to tweet our problem to External Affairs ministry. Thankfully, our problem was heard and today we got our passports. It was a new passport for myself while Anas’ passport was renewed,” said Tanvi to mediapersons.

Narrating the Wednesday ordeal, Tanvi said that when they reached counter no 5, official Vikash Mishra said that there was ‘some problem’ with the file as she had married a Muslim but chose to retain her maiden name. “The officer also insulted me and even asked my husband to convert to Hinduism if he wanted his passport renewed,” she alleged.

Later, they met an Additional Passport Officer, who was sympathetic and asked them  to come to the main office on Thursday.

Tanvi married computer engineer Anas Siddiqui 12 years ago and has a six-year-old daughter. The couple work for multi-national companies.        

Later, Tanvi tweeted details of her ordeal to External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. She wrote, “I tweet this with immense faith in justice and in you and ironically with a lot of anger /hurt and agony in my heart because of the way I was treated at Lucknow Passport Office at Ratan Square by Mr Vikas Mishra, the reason because I married a Muslim and did not change my maiden name.”

She also tweeted, “I never felt so insulted in the last 12 years of my marriage with my husband. It is my personal choice to chose a name I want to after marriage.”

In response, Additional Private Secretary to Swaraj, Vijay Dwivedi asked Secretary to Passport, Visa and Overseas Indian affairs at MEA, D M Mulay, to look into the issue.

Mulay later replied to Tanvi, “I sought report from RPL -Lucknow. Will take appropriate action.”

After getting the passport, Tanvi thanked Swaraj, RPO Lucknow and CPV for ‘timely action’ through a series of tweets this morning. “Since the time we walked in to the RPO office this morning we were treated nicely by RPO Mr. Piyush Verma and all the officials. They apologised for the official’s misconduct yesterday. They looked at our documents and issued passports to us in no time,” she tweeted.