Iranian girls move court for passports

The additional chief metropolitan magistrate court here is likely to hear on Tuesday an application filed by two Iranian women requesting the return of their passport and other travel documents seized by the city police.

The police confiscated the documents of Asar Fajeli (28) and Farima (26) – both students – after they had allegedly entered into a brawl with a traffic police officer on February 17. A test revealed that Asar had 59mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood, while Fatima had 89mg, much above the permissible 30mg.

The police officer, Rao Ganesh J, was conducting a routine check
on drink driving on Cubbon Road when the incident occurred. He flagged down the car, which was being driven by one of the women, and reportedly found them drunk.

The women attacked Ganesh when he seized the tax card of their car after learning that they were not in possession of a driving licence. They were subsequently arrested. The accused women were granted conditional bail on February 22. On seeing the women attacking the officer, some of the passersby damaged the Maruti Suzuki Alto car in which the foreigners were travelling. The women were also accused of biting a TV journalist.

Fajeli, who hailed from Tehran, was a BSc student of Dayanand Sagar College. Farma, from Iran’s Mashhad city, was a post-graduate student of business administration in National College.