Ballia: Police have visited the village of the husband of the woman who recently travelled to a remote corner of Pakistan to meet a Facebook friend, and conducted a “preliminary investigation”, officials said here on Tuesday.
Police officials visited Kharagpura village of the district on Monday, a day before Anju, a mother of two children, converted to Islam and married her friend Nasrullah in a court in the neighbouring country’s Upper Dir district.
Circle Officer (CO) of Rasda in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, Mohammad Faheem Qureshi on Tuesday said, “Police went to Kharagpura village on Monday and conducted a preliminary investigation regarding Arvind (the woman’s Indian husband). Anju and Arvind had visited the village only once, in 2014, to attend the marriage of her brother-in-law Anoop.”
This was before a senior officer of the Moharrar City police station in Pakistan’s Upper Dir district told PTI that Nasrullah and Anju’s marriage was solemnised and proper a Nikah was performed after the woman converted to Islam. Another senior police official confirmed the marriage and said Anju has been named Fatima after her conversion to Islam.
Anju, now Fatima, who used to live in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, became friends with Nasrulla on Facebook in 2019. She travelled to the Upper Dir district of Pakistan’s tribal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on a valid Pakistani visa. She left home last Thursday on the pretext of going to Jaipur but later, her family came to know that she was in Pakistan.
Nasrulla had earlier told PTI that Anju was only visiting him and “we have no plan to marry”. “She will go back to her country on August 20 after her visa expires,” he had said.
Back in the Ballia village Arvind is from, his aunt Subhavati informed reporters that both his parents have passed away. Arvind’s father had five brothers, two of whom have died and the rest work in different cities of India. Subhavati now lives in Kharagpura with her son Kunal.
Subhavati said Arvind and Anju got married in 2007 in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan and Anju had visited her in-laws’ place in Kharagpura only in 2014 to attend Anoop’s wedding.
She added that she has never spoken to the woman but the news of her going to Pakistan has upset the family and villagers.
Her son Kunal recalled the time when he met Anju. “It did not seem that she could ever take such a step,” Kunal said.
Local resident Chandran said Anju has made a mistake, while another villager, also called Arvind, said it was sad to hear that his village has come to the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
