New Delhi: Former Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) constable Munir Ahmed, in a legal challenge to his dismissal from service, has cited recommendation letters, which two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Members of Parliament (MPs) sent to the home and external affairs ministries for expediting the grant of visa to his wife, a Pakistan national.
In a writ petition filed before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Munir Ahmed has also cited his annual performance assessment report to demonstrate his excellent performance in the CRPF. He also listed details of his communications with CRPF officers at various levels before the Jammu bench of the high court last week.
Earlier in May, ThePrint reported Munir Ahmed’s 2 May dismissal after the CRPF found he harboured and married a Pakistani woman who entered India on a short-term visa without informing the authorities concerned. Calling it a “grave misconduct”, the CRPF accused Ahmed of compromising national security, thereby increasing threats to national interest.
Munir Ahmed married Pakistan national Menal Khan over a WhatsApp video call in May 2024.
Munir Ahmed’s writ petition pointed out that since he, the petitioner, was removed from service in an arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical manner through an impugned termination order dated 2/5/2025, the order “is bad in the eyes of the law” and requested the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to “set it aside”. ThePrint has seen a copy of the writ petition.
Disputing the 2/5/2025 order, accusing the ex-CRPF constable of harbouring and marrying a Pakistani woman without intimating authorities, Munir Ahmed in his petition said he “from 2022 had duly intimated the authorities time and again by following the procedure and rule”, with communications and representations reflecting the same annexed to his plea.
On Friday, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, hearing the matter, issued notices to the MHA and the CRPF, asking them to respond to Munir Ahmed’s writ petition before the next hearing, scheduled for 30 June this year.
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Series of communications, recommendations
In his exhaustive petition filed before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Munir Ahmed submitted his communications with CRPF officers to establish that he informed the department throughout about the process of his marriage and the nationality of his wife.
Munir Ahmed reiterated that he first filed an application seeking permission for his marriage in 2022. However, in January 2023, he got it back, along with some objections. Ahmed argued that he provided answers regarding the objections, again seeking permission.
He submitted before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that an Inspector General-rank officer informed the Special Director General-rank officer about his intimation in November 2023, according to Rule 21 (3) of Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964.
Munir Ahmed filed another request for no-objection in March 2024. On 30 April last year, the then Director General of the CRPF certified that he “intimated the department well within the rules” and said that he found “no mention of not issuing a no-objection certificate under the rules”, according to the petition.
Ahmed also claimed the first 72nd Battalion commanding officer and the Jammu zone Inspector General were informed in October 2024 and December 2024, respectively.
Munir Ahmed was transferred from the 72nd Battalion in Jammu to the 41st Battalion in Bhopal in March 2025. According to the plea, the diary for the new posting also recorded and clarified that his wife is of Pakistani origin.
The department on 12 April 2025 also sought all the details and documents of his marriage, Ahmed informed the high court through the plea, adding that he submitted the relevant papers on 24 April this year.
Munir Ahmed also informed the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that his wife entered India on 28 February 2025 and applied for a Long Term Visa (LTV) on 4 March this year.
Moreover, to prove his “impeccable integrity”, Ahmed relied upon a series of letters of recommendation from local BJP MPs. The MPs wrote to the Union minister of state for home affairs and the Union minister for external affairs, seeking a visa for his wife.
In the latest letter dated 6 February 2025, Gulam Ali Khatana, a nominated Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP, requested External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to expedite the granting of a long-term visa to Menal Khan. “I would like to bring to your kind notice that Mr Munir Ahmad, a resident of village Handwal in Jammu Kashmir, married to his maternal uncle’s daughter, Menal Khan, R/O Sialkot, Pakistan. Therefore, Menal Khan would like to travel to India,” Khatana wrote in the letter, now submitted with the writ petition.
According to the letter written this year, Munir Ahmed’s mother, Shamshad Bibi, is Menal Khan’s Indian sponsor. It also says that the foreign division of the home ministry accepted Menal Khan’s visa application, and on 24 January 2025, the external affairs department or the embassy received the go-ahead from the foreign division. “So, kindly expedite the application process and issue her visa as soon as possible,” Khatana wrote in his letter.
In another letter dated November 2024, Gulam Ali Khatana informed Jaishankar that Menal Khan was denied a visa in July 2023 for unknown reasons. It says that the families had postponed the wedding twice since the May 2024 online solemnization of their marriage, despite all the preparations, before filing a fresh visa application for Menal Khan in November 2024. “It is, therefore, requested that a visa may please be granted at the earliest so that bride Menal Khan joins her matrimonial home and leads a happy married conjugal life,” Khatana wrote in his second letter.
In a similar request in February 2024, Jugal Kishore Sharma, another BJP MP from Jammu, requested the then minister of state for home affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra, to clear Menal Khan’s visa application pending before the MHA.
For solemnising their marriage, “the bride’s family members have applied to the Indian Embassy”. “The processing of the application (or document) has been completed, and it is pending with the Home Ministry, Government of India,” Sharma wrote to Mishra on 10 February 2024.
“Therefore, you are requested to approve the visa to the said guest bride and her family members to come to India for marriage so that the wedding ceremony can be completed in Jammu,” he requested.
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