How did Pakistan's Seema Haider travel to India? Officials piece together her journey

Indian police say they are tracing the footsteps of Pakistani national Seema Haider, a 30-year-old woman who illegally crossed over to India to be with a man she met online.

Police also say they have found four mobile phones, five passports and two video cassettes, among other items, in the possession of the Karachi resident who entered India with her four children in May.

Authorities are probing how she successfully made the cross-border journey and if she had help.

The Anti-Terrorist Squad in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state — where Seema is staying with her lover, 22-year-old Sachin Meena — has questioned the couple as part of its probe that is looking into all angles, including espionage, amid reports that Seema had relatives in the Pakistan army.

On July 19, the Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) office shared a brief note on the matter that has sparked widespread interest and grabbed global headlines.

“Two video cassettes, four mobile phones, five Pakistan-authorised passports, one unused passport with incomplete name and address & ID card recovered from Seema Haider,” read the text attached to the brief note news agency ANI shared on Twitter.

According to the note, Seema saved up and took help from her relatives to buy an apartment for 12 lakh Pakistani Rupees (AED 15,530 approximately). She sold the apartment in January 2022 to arrange for the money she needed to travel to India.

Seema obtained a 15-day tourist visa and first went to Nepal’s Kathmandu on March 10. Meanwhile, Sachin, too, arrived there from India. The couple — who met in the chatroom of an online game during the 2020 Covid lockdown — stayed at a hotel till March 17.

In an exclusive interaction with ANI at Kathmandu, Ganesh Roka Magar, the hotel owner, said the couple checked in with fake names and stayed "for seven-eight days”. He said that "they didn't have the children with them..."

Seema made her second trip to Nepal with her four children in May and stayed at a hotel in Pokhara. She took a cross-border bus and entered India, where Sachin received her and her children in Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida area on May 13. They stayed at a place not far from Sachin’s house.

Indian police were tipped off about Seema’s arrival without a visa and arrested the couple. Sachin’s father, too, was held for sheltering Seema. Later, a court granted them bail.

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