Pakistan has extended visa by one year of a 34-year-old Indian woman who crossed the border to marry her Facebook friend. Anju, who now goes by the name of Fatima after converting to Islam on July 25 married her 29-year-old friend Nasrullah.
On Tuesday, Nasrullah, her now husband said that Anju's visa, which was earlier set extended for 2 months has now been extended for a year after their marriage, PTI has reported. Her original one-month visa which she had got when she came to Pakistan was also set to expire on August 20.
"The visa of my wife Anju has been extended for a year after the provision of related documents to the Interior Ministry," said Nasrullah as quoted by PTI. "All Pakistani institutions are cooperating with us," he added.
The mother of two children had travelled to a remote village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to marry her Facebook friend after converting to Islam, her Pakistani husband had earlier said. Anju's father had expressed grief and said that her actions had left her 13-year-old daughter and five-year-old son in a difficult situation, and it would now be their responsibility to care for them. Some reports also stated that Anju had denied rumors of marriage to her father. She denied the rumors of her marriage and referred to them as “baseless speculations" during a video call with his father Gaya Prasad Thomas, a report by Live Hindustan said on 30 July.
Last month, a real estate company had gifted the couple a plot of land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and presented them with a cheque. Anju, who was born in Kailor village in Uttar Pradesh and lived in the Alwar district of Rajasthan, travelled to Pakistan legally from India via the Wagah-Attari border. She was granted a 30-day visa, valid for Upper Dir only.
In India, she is married to Arvind, who is in Rajasthan and have a 15-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. He had said that before leaving, his wife told him that she is visiting one of her friends in Jaipur. “I got a voice call last night, she said that I am in Lahore. I have no idea why she went to Lahore and how she got the visa and other stuff. She informed me that she will return within two to three days," Kumar had said while speaking to ANI
Meanwhile, her story is similar to Seema Ghulam Haider, a 30-year-old Pakistani mother of four who sneaked into India to live with Sachin Meena, a 22-year-old Hindu man she got in touch with while playing PUBG in 2019. However, unlike Seema, Anju was granted entry into Pakistan by the authorities on the basis of a visa.
(With inputs from PTI)
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