Lahore:
A 30-year-old Indian man who came to Pakistan illegally to marry a friend he made on Facebook has been arrested and is currently in jail. At the same time, the woman has told the local police that she does not want to marry him.
Badal Babu, from Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested last week in Mandi Bahauddin district of Pakistan’s Punjab province (about 240 kilometers from Lahore) on charges of coming to the country illegally. Babu crossed the border illegally to meet a Facebook friend whom he wanted to marry.
Police have recorded the statement of 21-year-old Sana Rani, Babu’s Facebook friend, who has said that she does not want to marry him. Punjab Police officer Nasir Shah told PTI on Thursday, “In her statement given to the police, Sana Rani has said that Babu and she are friends on Facebook for the last two and a half years. But she doesn’t want to marry him.” He said Babu crossed the border illegally and reached Maung village of Sana Rani in Mandi Bahauddin, where he was arrested by law enforcers.
When asked whether Babu had met Rani, the police officer said he could not confirm it. It has also not been independently confirmed whether Rani was under any pressure when she gave her statement to the police and refused to marry Babu.
However, a source told PTI that intelligence agency officials questioned Rani and other members of her family about her relationship with Babu. After the arrest, Babu narrated his “love story” to the police. Babu was detained under sections 13 and 14 of Pakistan’s Foreigners Act because he was traveling without any legal document. Later he was produced in the court, from where he was sent to judicial custody for 14 days. The next hearing of the case will be on January 10.
This is not the first time that someone has crossed the border to meet his beloved after falling in love through social media. Earlier, an Indian woman named Anju had come to Pakistan to meet her lover. She converted to Islam and married Nasrullah, a Pakistani citizen.
Last year, a Pakistani woman named Seema Haider befriended an Indian man through the game ‘PUBG’. She went to India via Nepal with her four children and later married him and settled in India. Similarly, last year, 19-year-old Pakistani girl Iqra Jiwani befriended 25-year-old Indian citizen Mulayam Singh Yadav through an online game. Later Iqra and Mulayam got married in Nepal.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by the NDTV team and is published directly from a syndicated feed.)
