Hoshiarpur/ Hyderabad: Relatives and neighbours of former Bollywood starlet Monica Bedi have demanded that her five year prison term for passport forgery and cheating be reduced.
Bedi was extradited from Portugal along with Mumbai underworld figure Abu Salem on November 11 last year for holding a fake passport.
Salem is accused of being involved in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts in which 257 people were killed. He is currently lodged in a high-security jail in Mumbai.
According to police, Salem and Bedi fled the country soon after the blasts.
Bedi, in her early 30s, was brought to Hyderabad where she was charged for using a fictitious name and address to get a passport.
People in Hoshiarpur, her hometown, claim she has been framed.
"No, we don't believe that she is guilty she has been framed, she has been forced into all this. The punishment is wrong. There should have been a proper inquiry and she should have been acquitted. It is a setback for her," said Harbhajan Singh, a family friend.
Her aunt, Gurcharan Bedi, says Monica has never been involved in any illegal act.
Bedi has said that she would appeal against the verdict.
The court sentenced three others, including a police inspector and a postman to five years imprisonment for helping Bedi to get a passport based on false information.
Salem is believed to be a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind of the Mumbai blasts.
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