A passport officer has been punished for doing his job diligently. Looking at the facts and going beyond the headlines in the mainstream media and motivated reportage, one gets the impression that Vikas Mishra, the passport officer in the Lucknow Passport office, is a victim of false propaganda and misrepresentation of facts by a couple who played ‘victim card’ effectively to catch the media attention.
Meanwhile, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Rajiv Tuli has tweeted that “there is a world apart from the victim card and having connections with higher-ups” and Vikas Mishra, the officer in question, should get “justice”.
According to Mishra who was transferred for allegedly asking an inter-faith couple to convert to Hinduism, the couple had hidden certain facts and made false claims about their names and place of residence. “I had only followed the passport manual and asked the couple to come clean on the facts mentioned in the application. They gave false declaration by hiding facts about their place of residence. Actually they were the residents of Noida and were trying to obtain passport from Lucknow by showing false documents.” Mishra said though the woman Tanvi Seth who had married Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, had changed her name after marriage, in her application she hadn’t mentioned that. This amounts to suppression of facts.
Upset by the turn of events, Mishra said he did not ask the Muslim man to get converted to Hinduism. He has sought a probe into the whole episode. Mishra says he was threatened by the couple, saying “they were very influential people and he would face dire consequences”.
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