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The Bizarre UP Passport Case: Sushma Swaraj Gets Trolled, Eyewitness Claims He Was Kidnapped

So weird!
Getty Images/Screenshot from YouTube

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.

And here are some of the tweets that targeted her:

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.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.