While Tanvi Seth and her husband Mohammad Anas Siddiqui have received their passports since they first claimed that they were denied passports for being an inter-faith couple, there have been many twists in the story.
To begin with, an eye witness who had supported the passport officer who denied Seth her passport, has now claimed that he was kidnapped even as Minister of Foreign Affairs, usually praised for her work through Twitter, has become the latest victim of trolling.
Swaraj was trolled by anti-Muslim and right-wing Hindu trolls after the passport officer in question told the media that he denied passport to Seth, since her nikahnama had another name on it.
Seth and her husband had tagged Swaraj on Twitter for help after their passport was denied.
Swaraj took to Twitter and said she had liked some of the tweets that berated her. The trolls called her 'visa mata' since she is known to help Indians stuck abroad without a visa.
I was out of India from 17th to 23rd June 2018. I do not know what happened in my absence. However, I am honoured with some tweets. I am sharing them with you. So I have liked them.
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 24, 2018
And here are some of the tweets that targeted her:
THIS HARAM-KI-PAIDAISH VISA-MATA MUST BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY FROM HER POST ! pic.twitter.com/6zpT3M8kGE
— Bharat1 (@Bharatvanshi211) June 22, 2018
Passport process in India:
— Utkarsh Mishra (@Utkarsh_Mishra4) June 22, 2018
Regular
Tatkal
Tweet to @SushmaSwaraj ...😂😂😂😂😂
If u r Muslim, No verification needed is the new Rule by Passport Matah @SushmaSwaraj.This lady has spoilt all Hindus Sentiments by thhis cheap appeasement mentality.Her twitter works only, she never worked.
— Anirudh Routray (@anirudharoutray) June 24, 2018
It seems Sushma ji wants to join congress so she is proving more sickular than pappus and pidis.
— Sheldon's Cat (@JangleeBilla) June 23, 2018
Shame on her for favouring muslims.
Shame on her for granting visas to Pakis.
Shame on her for subverting laws.
Earlier @SushmaSwaraj was acting as Visa Mata for the Pakistanis and now she had evolved to Passport Mata for the Muslim comwitjout backing her officers who are just following the process in order to appear secular. Media help such manipulative people to create fake news pic.twitter.com/PNgu4qCJpj
— BP (@Bharatp1) June 21, 2018
Dear Visa Mata @SushmaSwaraj pls resign and retire from the Politics and relocate to Himalayas and never ever ever ever come back.
— Sidha-Saada-Patel (@SidhaSaadaPatel) June 21, 2018
Meanwhile, Kuldeep Singh –– the man who is said to be an eyewitness to the scuffle between Seth, Anas and passport officer Vikas Mishra -- has approached the police claiming he was kidnapped at gunpoint.
"Around 7.30 pm on Saturday Kuldeep came to the Sansarpur police outpost in the Mailani police station area of Lakhimpur Kheri. He told police that he was in Jankipuram area when three people took him at gunpoint and forced him into their SUVV. He claimed that he was sedated. When he recovered, he saw that the vehicle was parked and that his captors were outside at some distance. He claims to have taken advantage of this and run away," said Abhishek Pratap, Gola circle officer told The Indian Express.
Singh has claimed that he was being taken towards Nepal and he managed to reach a police station from there.
However, the police have said that Singh as changed his statements many times.
SSP Lucknow, Deepak Kumar was quoted by News18 as saying, "A case was registered after receiving written complaint from Kuldeep Singh. He was changing statements every now and then. Kuldeep is a bitcoin dealer and has been dealing in bitcoins from Gurugram and Lucknow. Kuldeep had made crores in a very short period of time through bitcoins, police are also investigating the bitcoin angle in the kidnapping bid."
These incidents followed after Mishra, the passport officer told the media that he only did his job and questioned Seth since she had a Muslim name in her nikahnama.
Seth and Anas had taken to Twitter last week to complain to Swaraj that they were denied passports by Mishra because they had different last names.
Seth had claimed that Mishra had told her that it was the duty of all women to change their names after marriage, meanwhile Anas said he was asked to take "pheras" and convert to Hinduism.