After Pahalgam incident, Seema Haider’s fate in India hangs in balance

As India cancelled visas for Pakistani nationals following the Pahalgam attack, Seema Haider, a Pakistani woman who entered India illegally in 2023 to marry her Indian partner Sachin Meena, finds her fate hanging in the balance. Ordered to leave the country, she has made a fresh appeal to the Indian government to let her stay.

In an emotional video circulating on social media, Seema urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allow her to remain in the country, declaring herself the "daughter-in-law of India."

Her plea comes as tensions between India and Pakistan surge in the aftermath of a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, which claimed the lives of 26 tourists, most of them Indian. In response, the Indian government has taken sweeping retaliatory measures, including the suspension of all visa services for Pakistani nationals.

Seema first gained national attention in 2023 when she left Karachi with her four children and entered India via Nepal to start a new life with Sachin Meena in Greater Noida. The couple had met in 2019 through an online gaming platform. Although Seema was previously married in Pakistan’s Sindh province, she converted to Hinduism after marrying Meena and embraced a new beginning in India.

However, her future is now uncertain. The Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Modi, has canceled all valid visas for Pakistani citizens effective April 27, with medical visas remaining valid only until April 29. Pakistani nationals in India have been instructed to leave before their visas expire.

“I appeal to Modi ji and Yogi ji that I am in their refuge now. I was Pakistan’s daughter but now I’m the daughter-in-law of India,” Seema said in her plea, expressing fear of deportation.

Despite mounting backlash, Seema’s lawyer remains optimistic, arguing that her religious conversion and marriage to an Indian citizen strengthen her legal claim to stay.

Meanwhile, media reports indicate that the Modi government has gone a step further, drawing criticism for barring 60 Indian women, all married to Pakistani men, from leaving the country.

These women, who were in India visiting their families, have long-term visas for Pakistan but have not been allowed to cross the Wagah border. They, along with their children, have been stranded in Amritsar for the past two days and have reportedly been restricted from leaving the city.