When the special branch of the city police received a tip-off that an illegal Bangladeshi national had been making trips from Mumbai to Muscat and back using a bogus Indian passport, they panicked, suspecting him to be a terrorist.
The Malwani police were immediately put on the job to investigate if Abdul Kadir Badshah Miya Shaikh, 37, presently residing in Malwani with Riya*, a bar dancer, has links with any terrorist outfit.
However, what they discovered was that it was Riya’s jilted husband who tipped off the police off about the “terrorist”. All because he wanted custody of his son, whom she had taken with her when she left him to live with Shaikh.
According to the police, Shaikh fled his home in Bangladesh when he was 10. He sneaked into India and lived in Kolkata for a while. Later, with the help of bogus documents, he got an Indian passport.
“Shaikh then went to Muscat and started working in a hotel there. It was in Muscat that he met Riya, a resident of Mira Road, who is married and has a child. In 2008, Shaikh’s passport expired and the authorities deported him to India,” said an officer from Malwani police station.
Once he was back in India, Shaikh started living in Mumbai. He got in touch with Riya, who was back in the city, and the two gradually fell in love.
“Shaikh convinced her to leave her husband and live with him instead. Riya, along with her son, moved in with Shaikh in Sai Kripa Housing Society in Malwani. Later, on the basis of his old passport and deportation note, he got a new passport issued and travelled to Muscat twice again,” said the officer.
When the police started looking into where the tip-off about Shaikh had come from, they found that it was Riya’s unemployed husband, who did it to teach Shaikh a lesson.
Shaikh was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Passport Act and
Foreigners Act for illegally staying in India and getting an Indian passport through the usage of bogus documents. He is presently in police custody.
(name changed)
