What happens when Indians and Pakistanis fall in love? Seema Haider and other stories of cross-border ‘pyaar’

Who said, “Love has no boundaries,” the truth is entirely different. The romance between Seema Haider, a Pakistani woman, and Sachin Meena, a resident of Greater Noida in the state of Uttar Pradesh, has grabbed headlines for weeks now. According to reports, Seema Ghulam Haider crossed the border into India from Nepal in order to join Sachin, whom she met through the online game PUBG. The Pakistani woman was taken into custody by India’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), who also began an investigation into the dispute. Seema allegedly refused to respond to inquiries about her reasons for entering India illegally while being questioned by UP ATS on Tuesday. During the interrogation, representatives from the Intelligence Bureau were also present. The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the main organisation in charge of policing the Nepal-India border in UP and Bihar, has also been asked to provide a report to the IB.

Well, this isn’t the first case of cross-border love. Let’s take a look. Also read: Is Seema Haider a spy? Does she have any links to the Pakistan Army? India-Pakistan (2023) Iqra Jeevani, a Pakistani woman who fled Hyderabad and married an Indian named Mulayam Singh Yadav, reportedly returned to her home in February of this year. Iqra Jeevani had fled from Hyderabad in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh. The young girl was detained in Bengaluru in January after crossing the porous border between India and Nepal in September. Through a gaming app, she met the 25-year-old security guard from UP with whom she got married. According to PTI, her uncle revealed she sold her jewellery and borrowed money from friends to buy air tickets to Dubai and onwards to Kathmandu from where she crossed into India. India-Pakistan (2022) Three persons, including a Pakistani woman, were detained by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) in August last year while attempting to enter India illegally in Bihar near the Indo-Nepal border with the help of a man from Hyderabad. According to the Times of India, Ahmed, a Hyderabad-based man, was the love of Pakistani woman Kalija Noor’s life as she attempted to enter India. Both of them fell in love after meeting online. According to reports, Ahmed worked as a hotel employee in Saudi Arabia and set up Noor’s entry into the nation via Nepal and subsequent travel to Hyderabad with the aid of his brother. India-Pakistan (2022) In June last year, a Madhya Pradesh woman who was trying to cross into the adjacent country to meet her lover was apprehended at the Attari border in Amritsar. From MP’s Rewa district, Fiza Khan, a private school teacher, had vanished. She connected with Pakistani man Dilshad through social media, and the two later fell in love, according to Tribune India. Also read: '26/11-like attack if Seema Haider doesn't return': Who is Pakistani woman in the headlines? India-Pakistan (2020) In July 2020, members of the Border Security Force (BSF) prevented a lovelorn man from fleeing to Pakistan. Siddiqui Mohammad Zishan was stopped by the BSF just 1.5 kilometres from the India-Pakistan International Border when he attempted to enter Pakistan through Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch. Zishan, according to India Today, was much in love with Samra, a young woman from the Shah Faisal area in Karachi, Pakistan. According to reports, he met her online and they communicated on Facebook and WhatsApp. He was using Google Maps to find his way, but when his parents reported him missing, the Maharashtra Police Crime Branch gave Gujarat Police his information, preventing him from crossing the border. A 20-year-old boy was then located close to Dhoiavira thanks to mobile tracking technology. India-Bangladesh (2023) Just weeks after Seema Haider’s case, another case involving a man from Moradabad and a Bangladeshi woman came to light. According to a DNA report, Julie, who hails from Bangladesh travelled to India to meet her purported lover named Ajay, a taxi driver from UP’s Moradabad. The two had fallen in love on Facebook. She, with her 11-year-old daughter Halima, travelled to India, got converted to Hinduism, and got married to Ajay. After spending a year of marital bliss in India, Julie took Ajay to Bangladesh to meet her parents. According to the report, Ajay’s mother Sunita alleged that marrying her son was a conspiracy and she illegally took Ajay across the border to her home country. When Sunita lost communication with her son four days ago, things took a nasty turn. Later, she received a picture of him covered in blood. The image sparked a panic, and soon after, Ajay called his sister to seek for money since he was in danger. Additionally, Julie allegedly wanted to squander the family funds and had no intention of returning to India with her kid by taking all the jewellery that had been given to her during the wedding to Bangladesh. This accusation was made by Ajay’s mother. India-Bangladesh (2018) Police in the Bangladeshi city of Dhaka detained Mousumi Das of Karimganj in the Barak Valley of southern Assam for entering India without legitimate travel permits. The Hindu claims that she fell in love after meeting Numan Badshad of Dhaka at an Assam trade expo. After she went missing in March, her parents reportedly called the police and reported a kidnapping. Later, a video on social media that was posted a week earlier showed that she was in Bangladesh. To marry Badshah, she had fled with him and embraced Islam. According to the Karimganj police, the pair entered Bangladesh through Tripura. With inputs from agencies