August 6, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 7, 1424

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NEW DELHI, Aug 5: A maverick Indian politician, whose mere presence evokes laughter in parliament, Tuesday moved to retrieve his passport from the police to travel next week to Pakistan with a goodwill team of MPs.

Laloo Prasad Yadav, former chief minister of lawless Bihar state, appealed to the Supreme Court to free his passport, which was seized following his arrest six years ago in a multi-million-dollar fraud scandal.

“This is a gross case of injustice as he wants to visit Islamabad only for three days,” Yadav’s lawyer B.B. Singh said of the politician’s ambitions to join the parliamentarian delegation to Pakistan next week.

Yadav, who installed his little-educated wife Rabri Devi as Bihar’s chief minister after his 1997 arrest, was forced to surrender his passport to a provincial court to secure bail.—AFP