Seema Haider files for Indian citizenship, pleads for mercy from President Murmu

Seema Haider, the Pakistan national who entered India illegally with her four children via Nepal, to meet and marry a Greater Noida resident Sachin Meena, whom she met in a PUBG chatroom, has filed for Indian citizenship. 

Haider is reported to have written to President Droupadi Murmu seeking Indian citizenship, as she plans to live in India with her children and now husband Sachin Meena. 

This comes amid an ongoing investigation by the Uttar Pradesh Police and Anti-Terrorism Squad for her illegally entering India, and increasing demands of her deportation to Pakistan. 

The 30-year-old woman from Sindh had crossed over to India illegally in May to be with her partner Sachin Meena in Greater Noida.

According to a Hindustan Times report, Haider in her petition to president Murmu has requested permission to stay in India. She claims to have been deeply influenced by Indian culture and traditions. 

In her petition, Haider also pleaded for mercy from President Murmu. 

Seema (30) and her Indian partner Sachin Meena (22) were questioned by the Uttar Pradesh Police's Anti-Terrorist Squad on Monday and Tuesday. They were arrested by the local police in Greater Noida on July 4 but granted bail by a court on July 7.

On the ATS questioning, the state police said two video cassettes, four mobile phones, five "authorised" Pakistani passports and one "unused passport" with incomplete name and address, and an identity card have been received from Seema Haider.

Asked if Seema could be a Pakistan spy, Special DGP asserted nothing could be said so early. "The matter is related to two countries. Till we have enough proof, it would not be appropriate to say anything in this regard," he said.

The couple had first got in touch in 2020 over online game PUBG. They exchanged their WhatsApp numbers after 15 days of online gaming, the UP police said in a statement on Wednesday, summarising the findings of the ATS questioning of the duo over Monday and Tuesday.

Police said Sachin and Seema met for the first time in person in March this year in Kathmandu, Nepal where they stayed together from March 10 to 17. Seema returned to Nepal from Pakistan -- taking the Karachi-Dubai route -- on a 15-day tourist visa on May 10.

In Nepal, she reached from Kathmandu to Pokhara and stayed for the night.

Seema then took a bus from Pokhara on the morning of May 12 and entered India from Roopandehi-Khunwa (Khunwa) border district Siddharthnagar.

Travelling via Lucknow and Agra, she reached the Rabupura cut, Gautam Buddha Nagar on March 13. Sachin had already taken a rented room in Rabupura where they started living together, the UP police said.