Pak Teen crossed into India To Marry Lover she met online; repatriated

Karachi, Pakistan: A 19-year-old Pakistani girl travelled on her own to Bengaluru to meet and marry an Indian man she had fallen in love with.

Iqra had met 26-year-old Mulayam Singh Yadav, a security guard in Bengaluru while playing an online game named ‘Ludo’ and had eventually fallen in love with him. They later decided to get married.

The intriguing story of the ‘shy’ Iqra Jeevani was revealed by her uncle.

The girl had sold her jewellery and borrowed money from friends to buy air tickets to Dubai and onwards to Kathmandu from where she crossed into India.

Yadav had arranged for her to be brought into Bengaluru via the India-Nepal border where he met her and took her to his home.

The couple then got married. Iqra was recovered last month from Bengaluru where she was found to be living with Yadav who is now in jail.

The girl was handed over to the Pakistani authorities on Sunday at the Wagah border.

Family sources in Pakistan's Sindh province, who didn't want to be named, claimed Iqra had returned home after her father, uncle and mother went to Lahore to receive her after Indian authorities handed her over to their Pakistani counterparts.

The story began when Iqra went missing in September after going to college.

‘We still don't know how she could muster up the courage to go to India by herself. She has always been a shy girl. We are as mystified as everyone else,’ her father, Sohail Jeewani, said adding that the matter was now closed forever.

Questions still remain over how the 16-year-old Iqra managed to travel from Karachi to Dubai then to Kathmandu and from there to India.

According to a family source, Iqra undertook this ‘long and dangerous journey’ because she had fallen in love with an ‘Indian man who she thought was a Muslim software engineer Sameer Ansari’. Ansari in reality was Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Her uncle, Afzal Jeewani, said Iqra went to Dubai and then to Kathmandu as she couldn't obtain a visa for India.

Iqra was only recovered by the Indian police after neighbours in the locality where Yadav took her complained to the police after seeing her offering prayers, he said.

"Some of the neighbours got suspicious when they saw a girl offering namaz in a Hindu's home as she was living there under the Hindu name of Rava," Afzal said.

He also confirmed that Indian police had recovered Iqra soon after the complaint but kept her in a shelter home where she was questioned by police and intelligence people about how she got into India.

Yadav even got an Aadhaar card done for Iqra after changing her name to Rava and later she even applied for an Indian passport.

"But we are thankful to the Pakistan and Indian governments for helping us in recovering her and ending this terrifying chapter for us," Afzal said.

He said the girl has constantly been asking for forgiveness since her return to Pakistan. He claimed that the Indian man had deceived his niece by posing as a Muslim boy when the two met on social media while playing online Ludo games.

The Jeewani family, which has a business in Shahi Bazar in Hyderabad city in the southern Sindh province, said Iqra realised her blunder after reaching Bengaluru and meeting Yadav as she started calling her mother on WhatsApp to inform her about everything.

A senior police official said the family informed them about the call and they got in touch through the required channels with the Pakistan foreign office who then contacted their Indian counterparts to help find and recover the girl.

Dr Fatima Sehgal, a psychiatrist who specialises in addiction and the effects of social media, told PTI that Iqra's case was not a big surprise to her as such is the power of online friendships.

"When someone, especially a girl, comes from a conservative family background and is an introvert he or she is easily enticed into friendships on online platforms and they develop a very strong trust, bond and at times even love with someone they have met online," she said.

Fatima said that when such a girl or boy befriends someone who listens to them, patronises them and expresses love for them they start visualising a film-like future with them.

"That is why it is so necessary for parents these days to learn about the bad effects of social media and use them in their parenting," she added.