Global Courant
Their love affair across one of the world’s most closely guarded borders had begun on the virtual battlefields of a video game where players bond by supporting each other against bloody enemy ambushes to become the last survivors.
But when Seema Ghulam Haider, 27, a married Pakistani Muslim woman, sneaked into India with her four children to be with Sachin Meena, 22, a Hindu man, their time together was short-lived. About two months after they secretly moved into the same neighborhood in Rabupura, a city outside New Delhi, the couple came across the Indian authorities.
This week Ms Haider and her children were arrested on charges of illegal entry into India; Mr. Meena and his father were also arrested, on charges amounting to conspiracy to protect an enemy.
“I don’t want to go back,” Ms Haider told reporters as she was taken away by police, her confused children beside her. “I want to marry Sachin. I love him a lot. I left everything for him.”
Mr. Meena also confirmed his love.
“We just want the government to let us get married and start a family,” he said when he and his father were arrested.
Among the hurdles the lovers face, perhaps the greatest is the bitterness between their respective homelands.
India and neighboring Pakistan – a country carved out of India in 1947 as the last act of British colonial rule – have fought many wars. Tensions are so high that even suspicious pigeons border crossing have ended up in detention on charges of espionage. Getting a visa is a bit like winning a lottery.
And in both countries, interfaith relations have become a minefield.
In Pakistan, where Islamic extremism is deep-rooted, reports regularly emerge of girls from religious minorities, particularly Hindus, who were married at a young age and forced to convert to Islam, according to human rights organizations.
In India, a powerful Hindu right-wing movement condemns any interfaith relationship between a Muslim and a Hindu, citing such unions as an example of “love jihad”, or an attempt by Muslim men to pursue Hindu women with the intention of converting them to Islam. That accusation has become part of a larger and consistent demonization of the country’s 200 million Muslims.
Ms. Haider and Mr. Meena met in 2019, on the virtual battlefields of the hugely popular game PUBG (pronounced pub-gee). In 2020 they switched to Instagram and WhatsApp, among others.
“They both grew closer, so the desire to meet arose,” the Indian police said in a statement about their relationship.
Ms Haider lived in Karachi, where she had four children with her husband, Ghulam Haider, whom she married in 2014, according to police and her father-in-law.
Ms Haider’s cross-border romance with Mr Meena appears to have started after her laborer husband moved to Saudi Arabia for a job.
“Sachin was always talking to someone late at night, as late as 2-3 am,” said Birbal Meena, his uncle, who lived with his cousin and extended family in a shared house in Rabupura. about 40 miles southeast of New Delhi.
At first, the younger Mr. Meena deflected questions about his calls.
“Then he confessed that he was in love with a Pakistani woman and intended to marry her,” said his uncle. “He also said that the woman had four children and that her husband had abandoned her.”
“We told him, how could he get a woman from a hostile country?” said the uncle. “Sachin’s grandfather begged him, ‘Please don’t do this.'”
Nearly four years after their long-distance relationship, the couple met for the first time in March in Nepal. They stayed in a hotel in Kathmandu for a week; police officials said she had come without her children. She returned to Pakistan and he to India – with the promise that they would reunite, using the porous border between India and Nepal.
How did they plan their route so that Ms. Haider would eventually reach India, with children in tow? By “searching YouTube,” both told reporters when they were arrested.
The second time Ms Haider left for Nepal in May, she brought her children with her – and it was clear she had no intention of returning.
Unbeknownst to her husband, who still lives in Saudi Arabia, Ms Haider had sold her house to finance her trip, Mir Jan Jhakrani, her father-in-law, said.
“Then suddenly I found the news on social media – that the Indian government had arrested her,” Mr Jhakrani said.
The pair could face several years in prison, most likely followed by deportation of Ms Haider and her children.
Police officials said their questioning showed that Mr Meena, who earned about $100 a month at a corner shop, had not blown his story or lured Ms Haider with false promises.
“She knew he was not very strong financially,” said Sudhir Kumar, the head of the Rabupura police station. “She wasn’t impressed with his work, but with his PUBG skills.”
Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from Karachi, Pakistan.
