Couple facing charges of forging initials denied bail

A local court has dismissed a bail application of Asif Khan, a resident of Fatehgarh Sahib, and his wife arrested in a case registered for performing inter-faith marriage allegedly by using fake signatures of the witnesses on a marriage certificate (nikahnama).

The inter-faith marriage issue was highlighted after the high court while hearing the protection petition plea directed the CBI to conduct an inquiry to check if any racket was operational under the garb of fake marriages keeping in mind religious conversion. But it came to its notice that the couple solemnised the marriage in an auto-rickshaw instead of a mosque.

The police had registered the case on August 7 against the accused under Sections 318(4), 338, 336 (3), 340(2) and 3(5) of the BNS at Badali Ala Singh police station, Fatehgarh Sahib district, on a complaint of a person named Harmandeep Singh.

He said that on July 6 Asif Khan and his wife performed ‘nikah’ in presence of Maulvi Sakil Ahmed in an auto-rickshaw at Khuda Ali Sher village, Chandigarh. Following this, both filed a protection petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Harmandeep said that he came to know that in the marriage certificate his and his friend’s fake signature as witnesses had been used.

After verification, the FIR was transferred to Chandigarh. The counsel of the accused said that the accused were innocent and had been falsely implicated in the case. The challan had already been presented in the present FIR, so it solved no purpose to keep the accused behind bars.

However, the public prosecutor opposed the bail application and said the case was still under investigation and was in the initial stage.

After hearing the arguments the court dismissed the bail application of the accused. It said that the allegations against the accused were serious in nature. Keeping in view the seriousness of allegations levelled against the accused the bail application is dismissed, it said.