Seema Haider, the Pakistani national who illegally entered India in May last year to marry Sachin Meena, an Indian she met online, was on Monday seen celebrating with her family in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida, after the Union government notified Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules.
Haider and her family held up the Indian tricolour, and posters of prime minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
“We are very happy…we congratulate the Indian government. PM Modi has done what he promised,” news agency PTI quoted her as saying.
Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed by Parliament in December 2019, makes it easier for non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, to get Indian citizenship.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all Muslim-majority countries.
Who is Seema Haider?
Seema Haider made headlines in July 2023, after authorities found her living with Sachin in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh; she claimed that she fell in love with him on mobile game PUBG, and decided to come to India to be with him.
In doing so, she left her then husband, who was living and working in Saudi Arabia.
Haider told BBC in an interview that she had become a Hindu, and refused to return to her native country. She further claimed that her children with her first husband, too, had converted to Hinduism.
Seema is also reported to have written to President Droupadi Murmu seeking Indian citizenship, amid calls for her to be deported.
She will, however, not be a CAA beneficiary as she is a Muslim and came to India after the cut-off date.