By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 14 Jan: Uttarakhand Police may now have declared a nominal award of Rs 1000 for anyone who can lead them to Nazia Yusuf, the absconding wife of Sachin Upadhyay (who is currently out on bail on allegations of multiple frauds), but the fact remains that it had initially been quite hesitant to act against the couple despite court orders.
It may be recalled that the brother of ex-MLA and senior Congress leader Kishore Upadhyay, Sachin Upadhyay, and his wife Nazia, are facing several cases of fraud. Besides this, they have also been known to be illegally operating a club, the WIC, in buildings that had on paper been sealed by the MDDA. However, such has been the level of connivance between the bureaucrats, police officials and this influential couple that nobody in the state administration or the district administration appeared keen to notice such blatant violations of the law. Although a case had been registered against the couple at Rajpur Police Station in 2017 by Mukesh Joshi, ex-partner of Sachin Upadhyay, the police did not take any action and did not deem fit to even inquire into the complaint. This forced Joshi to approach the district court and it was only after the court took serious note of the inaction that the Police were forced to take action late in 2019. Consequently, Sachin Upadhyay was arrested in December, 2019. However, even then, the police seemed reluctant to arrest Nazia Yusuf or take any action against her. It is only now that the state police have declared an award on her head at the directions of new SSP, Yogendra Singh Rawat.
Sachin Upadhyay is understandably quite influential and, though, he is accused of cheating and frauds in several cases, the police have not taken action for more than three years. Sachin was arrested only a year ago under pressure from the district court. It is learnt that Upadhyay is facing cheating charges in some cases in Delhi, too, where he was in a business partnership related to real estate with several persons including the complainant in the present case, Mukesh Joshi.
As per the FIR filed by Joshi on 12 March, 2017, he had filed a case against Upadhyay in 2012 at a Delhi Police Station, where he had alleged that Upadhay and his wife had sold off a property belonging to him by forging his signatures. However, following registration of the FIR, Upadhyay had agreed to pay him an amount of Rs 2.65 crores and it was agreed by both the parties that till Upadhyay paid his dues to Joshi, he would mortgage one of his properties located in Rajpur, Dehradun, to him. However, not only did Upadhyay not pay the amount to Joshi, he managed to obtain a loan against the property mortgaged to Joshi by him. When pressed for payment by Joshi, Upadhyay allegedly began to threaten him with dire consequences. This led Joshi to file a case against him with Rajpur Police in 2017. However, when the Police failed to act against the couple, Joshi was forced to approach the district court. Consequently, a SIT was formed by the Police and Upadhyay arrested in December 2019. The police could then easily have arrested Nazia as she was living with her husband in their Rajpur residence.
Now, according to SP City, Shweta Choubey, the police have declared an award on her and are on the lookout. According to Rajpur Police Station in charge Rakesh Shah, the police are conducting raids on her possible hideouts and would soon be able to arrest her. It may be recalled that, despite such a record, Nazia had managed to become FICCI Flo’s Chairperson in Uttarakhand!
