PUBG, love, and police: A real-life `Veer-Zara’

Noida:It’s as filmi as it gets. Imagine an Indian man obsessed with an online game who comes across a woman gamer from Pakistan’s Karachi. They spend hours online every day, and their bond deepens to the extent that she leaves home — along with her four children — to be with him.
Seema Ghulam Haider and Sachin Meena got in touch while playing PUBG in 2019 as a dramatic love story unfolded between the two living more than 1,300 km apart, in countries not too friendly to each other.
Seema is around 30 while Sachin is about 25 and lives in Rabupura area of Greater Noida, near the national capital, where he runs a provision store, according to police.
The police arrested the couple on Monday, and later the man’s father Netrapal Meena. The Pakistani woman is accused of entering the country illegally and the other two of sheltering her.
A local court on Tuesday remanded all three to 14-day judicial custody. Seema’s children – three girls and a boy, all below 7 — would stay with their mother in jail, police said.
“I want to stay with her. I will take care of Seema and all her children,” Sachin told reporters before he was taken to the district and sessions court in Greater Noida.
“I still love her. We both love each other. I want to appeal to the government to please let us get married and we will stay happy. We will do as the government orders. I do not have any wish to go to Pakistan,” he said, responding to a volley of questions.
Seema said she and Sachin were passionate about PUBG and would play the online game for three or four hours daily. While they got in touch in 2019, they first met in person in March this year in Nepal’s Kathmandu, where the two stayed together for seven days.
Then they both returned to their homes.
In May, Seema came to India through Nepal on the bus with her children. She said she got the idea for the journey from videos on YouTube.
“I wanted to get married to Sachin. I want to stay here only and don’t want to go back. I love him a lot and have left everything behind just to be with him,” she said, almost breaking down in tears as police escorted her to the court on Tuesday afternoon.
Seema, who hails from Pakistan’s Sindh province, was married to Ghulam Haider in 2014. They lived together in Karachi till 2019 when he moved to Saudi Arabia for work. This was her second marriage and all the four children who came with her are from the first husband, police said.
Police said the couple did not have a happy marriage, and in 2019 Seema met Sachin online. Over the next four years, they chatted through text messages and internet-based phone calls, using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan said Seema and her children reached Greater Noida on May 13.
Sachin had made arrangements for them in rented accommodation near his home in the Ambedkar Nagar area of Rabupura town. The woman kept her identity hidden for several days, till the police got a whiff.
An FIR has been lodged at the local Rabupura police station under the Foreigners Act and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, Khan said.
“Central agencies, including the Bureau of Immigration and the UP Anti-Terrorist Squad, have been informed about the case,” the DCP said.