NOIDA: Granted bail by a city court a day ago, Pakistan's Seema Haider and her cross-border partner Sachin Meena returned to their Rabupura home in Greater Noida on a rain-soaked Saturday.
Out of jail, the couple said they were happy and planned to complete all the paper works and tie the knot soon.
Seema told TOI she has adopted Hinduism and dropped her surname Haider to adopt Sachin's. "Seema is a common name in Hindus and Muslims and hence Sachin said I need not change my first name. I will call myself Seema or Seema Sachin. We have changed our children's names to Raj, Priyanka, Pari and Munni," she said.
A resident of Khairpur district of Sindh province in Pakistan, Seema travelled to Nepal and then entered India without valid papers on May 13. To fund this uncertain journey, one made for the heart, the woman had even sold off a piece of land for Rs 12 lakh.
On May 13, when she de-boarded a bus on Yamuna Expressway, she felt the shackles of an abusive marriage had finally broken. Sachin, who her and the children to a rented house to Rabupura, some 200m from his parent's house. The couple are now comfortably settled in that house.
Initially, she would tell neighbours she was from Delhi and had married Sachin. She consciously avoided Urdu and used more Hindi words.
However, soon people started whispering that a Pakistani national was living in the neighbourhood and police launched a search. The couple fled to Ballabhgarh but were arrested on July 4.
On Saturday, Sachin said he was happy to be home with Seema by his side. "My family members have accepted Seema with her children. I request UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant Seema Indian citizenship. We plan to organise a wedding in a traditional Hindu way," he said. The couple said they had married in Kathmandu on March 13 this year but they do not have a document or a witness.
Meanwhile, Seema's husband Ghulam Haider, who works in Saudi Arabia, in a video message, said: "Islam or Hinduism do not allow marriage of a woman with a man when she is not divorced. I urge the Modi government to send Seema back to Pakistan and unite with me."
Seema, however, claimed her husband divorced her over the phone and that they had not been in touch for long.
Sachin's parents told TOI they were planning a Ganga snan (holy bath in the Ganga) and a formal marriage function for the couple as per Hindu tradition soon. The couple has received outpouring support from neighbours so far. "If they are in love with each other, they should be allowed to live together," Sanjay Kumar, a neighbour, said.