KOCHI: Casting a shadow over the functioning of the state’s intelligence unit, a woman accused in multiple cheating cases involving a total of Rs 4.27 crore — with two non-bailable warrants, a chargesheet filed as ‘absconding’, and a police lookout circular against her name — allegedly managed to travel from the UK to India to renew her passport and then return.
The accused — Haseena Beevi aka Haseena Suneer — belongs to Pathanapuram in Kollam district and is the director of the Malayalam film ‘Prakashante Metro’.
“Instead of acting on the lookout notice and non-bailable warrants (NBWs), the authorities allowed her to travel despite repeated complaints and alerts from our side,” complainant Sunil G R Nair, who resides abroad, told TNIE. “It appears that individuals with vested interests may have facilitated her escape.”
He has accused Haseena of swindling Rs 1.17 crore from him. Haseena, holding a two-year UK visa, arrived in Kerala on June 6 this year as the visa condition requires her to leave the UK every six months, he said. “After learning of the fraud and her disappearance, I filed a complaint with the Kerala police chief on July 4 and a case was registered at the Museum police station on August 3,” he said.
A friend and representative of the complainant, Manoj K Varghese, said that Sunil, suspecting an attempt to renew Haseena’s passport, had alerted the Regional Passport Officer (RPO) in Thiruvananthapuram that she was chargesheeted in a Rs 2.5-crore cheating case filed by the Vadanappally police.
Copies of the complaint were sent to the Intelligence ADGP, district police chiefs, and ACPs of Kollam and Pathanamthitta, along with relevant documents, he said. Additionally, Sunil lodged a complaint with the Alappuzha district police chief (DPC), noting Haseena’s other residence in Nooranad and the possibility of passport renewal using that address. Despite these alerts, Haseena successfully renewed her passport, changing her address from Pathanapuram to Nooranad while hiding all the pending criminal cases.
“We then filed another complaint with the Alappuzha DPC and ADGP Intelligence, alerting them that the accused had renewed her passport while the non-bailable warrants were pending. The following morning, she was apprehended by Nooranad police from her residence but was produced before the judicial first class magistrate, Kayamkulam, only for frauds of Rs 25 lakh and Rs 20 lakh, without informing the court of the non-bailable warrants,” Manoj said.
He alleged that Nooranad police failed to seize Haseena’s passport despite her criminal history, enabling her to flee to the UK with her renewed passport on July 25.
Meanwhile, Nooranad police refuted the accusations, stating there were no irregularities on their part. “Once a case is filed, the police are the complainants. There were no vested interests in the proceedings. Acting on the complaint, we promptly apprehended the accused and produced her before the court under the cases registered against her in judicial first class magistrate court, Kayamkulam, where she was granted bail,” said an officer with Nooranad police station.
The police are awaiting details from the Regional Passport Office, Kochi, to determine if the accused renewed her passport using forged documents, he added.
According to Sunil’s complaint, Haseena and her friend Biju Gopinath, who hails from Kumarapuram in Thiruvananthapuram, cheated him after promising him a partnership in a UK-based restaurant called ‘Thattukada’.