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A Muslim and Hindu couple in Lucknow, India applied for passports but instead got a rejection and a telling off from the passport officer.
The interfaith couple, Mohammad Anas Siddiqui and Tanvi Seth, married each other back in 2007 and have a 6-year-old daughter together.
The couple applied for passports at the Lucknow passport office in Ratan Square yesterday, June 20, but the passport officer rudely and loudly turned them down, and told the wife, Tanvi, that she shouldn’t have married a Muslim.
In an interview with News18.com, Siddiqui shared that he was even scolded and told to convert to Hinduism, or else “my marriage won’t be accepted.”
The passport officer was revealed to be a certain Vikas Mishra.
Tanvi has since taken to Twitter to bemoan their situation, tagging Sushma Swaraj, Minster of External Affairs of the Government of India in the process.
Speaking with “anger and agony” in her heart, Seth wrote that she never imagined she would be subjected to “moral policing” inside a passport office.
“Ma’am, I never ever imagined that in a place like passport office we would have people who are moral policing the citizens,” wrote Seth. “He [didn’t] just put my passport on hold he even put my husband’s passport on hold. This is clear grudge. I was shocked at this [behavior].”
https://twitter.com/tanvianas/status/1009362865260777473
Seth continued that she had never felt so insulted in the last 12 years of her marriage to her husband. “It is my personal choice to choose a name I want to after marriage,” Seth wrote. “This is our family matter and last thing I expected to hear at the passport office was, ‘It is your duty to change your name after marriage.'”
Seth, it turns out, chose to retain her original name after marrying Siddiqui. It’s known that changing one’s maiden name in India is not compulsory and is a choice, but for some, it can be an unwritten law.
https://twitter.com/tanvianas/status/1009364417115541505
“The person who spoke to my husband later said, ‘If your wife’s case would have come to me there wouldn’t have been issues because her papers are complete,'” added Seth.
https://twitter.com/tanvianas/status/1009364722859364352
It seems however that Seth’s tweets have reached the right authorities. In her latest tweet just a few hours ago, as of this writing, she shared that they were treated well when they went back to the passport office today, June 21.
Seth added that the officials apologized for the misconduct of the passport officer yesterday and issued them passports in no time. She also extended her gratitude to the timely action of the authorities. JB
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