Revealed: Pak teen’s trip to unite with desi lover

KARACHI: The intriguing story of how a “shy” teenage Pakistani girl travelled on her own to Bengaluru to meet and marry an Indian man was revealed by her uncle who said she sold her jewellery and borrowed money from friends to buy air tickets. Her uncle Afzal Jeewani said Iqra went to Dubai and then to Kathmandu as she couldn’t obtain a visa for India.

The girl, identified as Iqra Jeevani, was recovered last month from Bengaluru where she was living with a Hindu man, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is now in jail. She was handed over to the Pakistani authorities on Sunday at the Wagah border.

They met online and fell in love and later decided to get married. Following this, she reached Nepal a few months ago and they got married.

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 intriguing story started in September last when Iqra went missing after going to college.Requests to speak to Iqra were not successful but her father, Sohail Jeewani, said the matter was now closed forever. “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,” he said.

One family source said the family was still to recover from the shock of what took place in the last four months. “And she undertook this long and dangerous journey because she had fallen in love with an Indian who she thought was a Muslim techie Sameer Ansari,” source said.

Ansari in reality was 26-year-old Mulayam Singh Yadav, a security guard in Bengaluru whom Iqra met while playing online Ludo.

Iqra was only recovered by Indian police after neighbours complained after seeing her offering prayers.

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

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