HYDERABAD: Iqra, a young woman arrested along with her purported Hindu husband Mulayam Singh Yadav last Monday in Bengaluru (Bangalore) for staying in India illegally, had actually disappeared after leaving for college in Hyderabad on Sept 19, 2022.

Iqra had been living with her parents in the Shahi Bazaar area near Seroghat downtown. She was a student of the Federal Govt College located within the jurisdiction of the Cantonment police station.

Her father, Sohail Jeewani, a cloth trader, appeared unaware of when and how she had left the country and reached Bangalore.

She had gone missing on Sept 19, 2022 after leaving for the college, Mr Jeewani told Dawn over phone while confirming in a brief conversation that “she is in trouble in India now”. He was reluctant to share details of what had actually happened to her.

“I just don’t know what has happened. I came to know about her [whereabouts] when the matter was reported by a television channel. It said that she is in the Indian city of Bangalore where she has been arrested,” said Mr Jeewani.

Her family says her purported spouse is Muslim but Indian police declared him a Hindu

He said he was quite disturbed over the matter. “When she did not return home, I inquired from the college management and I was told that she simply didn’t turn up on Sept 19,” Mr Jeewani stated in his FIR lodged vide crime No. 86/22.

According to a family source, the girl got in touch with the man through an online Ludo game. “Iqra had been talking to her mother until before she was arrested by the Bangalore police. She told her mother that she had married him but didn’t share the Nikahnama,” said the family source.

According to Afzal Jeewani, Sohail’s younger brother, Iqra had mostly been speaking to her mother until her arrest but her father did not speak to her much so far. Afzal said that she had been in touch with the man through video game for around seven-eight months before she left the country.

Sohail Jeewani said that he could speak to her only once and then came the news of her arrest. “We had rece­ived her first call 12 days after we failed to locate her in Pakistan,” he said.

“We were told that the man is Muslim and his name is Sumair Ansari. But he turned out to be a non-Muslim; he has deceived her,” said Mr Jeewani. He said that Iqra had performed Umrah with her grandfather and paternal uncles last year.

Reports say that she travelled to Nepal and then to India. Her fat­h­er has, however, lodged a case of her kidnapping at the City police station.

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Mr Afzal and his father, Haji Rafiq Jeewani, appealed to the government of Pakistan to help rescue Iqra. “We are suffering from severe mental stress; the entire family is in trouble,” they said.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2023