Mistaken identity leads to innocent youth's detention

In a classic case of mistaken identity, the city police had issued a lookout notice for an innocent. As a result, the youth had to spend half-a-day in the police station soon after landing from Dammam.

Mohammed Ashfaq, 26, a resident of Kulai Vidyanagara was working in Saudi Arabia. However, he was detained at Mangaluru International Airport and was later handed over to the police on Thursday.

Though Ashfaq was not involved in any criminal cases, a lookout notice was pending against his passport number, by mistake. In reality, it was Mohammed Asfar who was involved in the murder of Shivaraj in Kodikere in 2012 and by mistake, the lookout notice was issued in the name of Ashfaq. As a result, he was detained by the immigration officials when he landed at 4 am on Thursday. Ashfaq's parents were waiting at the airport to receive him. The issue was brought to their notice at around 7 am. Ashfaq called his parents from the police station using another man's phone and informed about his plight. He was initially taken to Bajpe police station and later to Panambur police station.

DYFI president Muneer Katipalla brought the issue of mistaken identity to the notice of the senior police officials. After verifying the documents, the police released him at 2.30 pm.

Ashfaq's father Ahmmed Bava said, "My son was not part of any criminal cases. Owing to the mistake of the police, my son had to face difficulties."

City Police Commissioner T R Suresh said, "The lookout notice was issued in 2016. The officials are looking into the reason for committing a mistake."

It is said that Dinesh and Prakash had murdered Shivaraj. Later, Prakash too was murdered. Dinesh is serving life imprisonment. The police, in their charge sheet, had said that Mohammed Asfar had given supari for the murder of Shivaraj. Both Asfar and Ashfaq's parents' names are Ahmmed Bava and Hajira.

After submitting charge sheets, while collecting documents from school, the police had brought the documents of Ashfaq instead of Asfar. Based on this, the lookout notice was served, the sources said.