Lucknow: Three women from Kerala who came to meet their family members in jail were arrested in Lucknow for allegedly handing in fake RT PCR Covid test reports.
The women are relatives of Ansad Badruddin and Firoz Khan, both members of the Popular Front of India (PFI) who were arrested in February this year for allegedly planning blasts at a programme of Hindu organisations. Since then, they have been lodged at the Lucknow district jail.
The FIR, registered at the Gosaiganj Thana in Lucknow, states that on 26 September, four women — Nazeema Badruddin, Muhsina, Kunahlima and Saujat K.C. — are booked under sections 419 (cheating), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 (forgery of valuable security) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 461 (person guilty for dishonestly) of the IPC.
Muhsina is the wife of Ansad Badruddin. Nazeema is her mother-in-law. Saujat is the wife of Firoze and Kunhalima is her relative.
Can’t find one accused: Police
While four accused have been named, only three women have been arrested, and police are still searching for the fourth accused, said additional commissioner Police (ACP), Gosaiganj area, Swati Chaudhary.
“FIR was registered on the complaint of jailor Ajay Kumar when they showed him fake Covid test reports. So, we arrested three of them after the investigation,” she said.
According to the FIR accessed by ThePrint, all four accused visited Lucknow district jail seeking permission to meet Badruddin and Firoz. All the four submitted their identification cards and RT PCR reports, purportedly from a Ghaziabad laboratory.
Jail officials, the FIR states, contacted the laboratory in Ghaziabad to verify the four RT PCR reports, which denied them, following which a case was registered.
According to local media reports, Muhsina and her mother-in-law Nazeema had left behind the former’s two-year-old child Danwa Mariyam, believing that the trip would be brief. The child is in Kerala without her parents.
Firoz Khan’s wife, Saujath, had, according to the reports, come with her four children to Lucknow.
The Lucknow Police claims that it has sent back all the children with lawyer K.C. Naseer, who was accompanying the families.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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