Why are Indian Muslims marrying Pakistanis? As visas get cancelled after Pahalgam attack and victimhood stories flood media, read how it can be a security threat
The nation continues to grieve the cold-blooded killing of 26 Hindu tourists by Pakistan-backed terrorists in the Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam, on 22nd April. The Modi government downsized diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, implemented several important measures including ban on the country’s YouTube channels and decided to hold the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, in response to the heinous attack. Subsequently, a frustrated Pakistan resolved to take similar action regarding the 1972 Simla Agreement.
The center also issued “Leave India” notice to Pakistani nationals staying in the country. The cutoff date for individuals with SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) visas to depart India was 26th April while individuals with medical visas must depart by 29th April. The 12 visa categories that necessitate departure include visa on arrival, business, film, journalist, transit, conference, mountaineering, student, visitor, group tourist, pilgrim and group pilgrim.
The Immigration and Foreigners Act 2025, which became effective on 4th April, stipulates that overstaying, breaching visa conditions or trespassing in restricted areas can lead to a prison sentence of up to three years and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. Pakistani citizens failing to adhere to government orders will be subjected to the same penalities. Notably, the development has led to opposition among Muslim women, self-identifying as half-Pakistani, who are married to Pakistani men as many were spotted protesting against the action as India sealed the border with its hostile neighbour.
Women with Indian passports are also being denied entry by Pakistan’s administration. It is important to note that an Indian woman married to a Pakistani man is not eligible to apply for the country’s passport immediately following her marriage. She generally has to wait a period of nine years before becoming eligible, however, many even claimed that their citizenship applications had been pending for as long as ten years. Most women have declined to allow their children, who possess Pakistani passports, to travel to the country without their presence amid the ongoing ruckus at the Attari-Wagah border.
Meanwhile, at least 537 Pakistani people, including nine diplomats and officials reportedly left India through the Attari-Wagah border point in four days starting on 24th April. The international border crossing in Punjab has seen 850 Indians return from Pakistan in the same time frame including 14 diplomats and officials. According to the authorities, some Pakistanis might have also departed India through airports, adding that India and Pakistan do not have direct air connectivity, therefore they could have left for other nations.
Shocked netizens vent out their anger
The Indian law does not prohibit a citizen from marrying a Pakistani national. However, the alarming rate of these marriages has taken many by surprise. Many social media users have noted the instances of these women who have had children in India following their weddings with Pakistani men, suggesting that this could lead to the misuse of taxpayer funds and could potentially turn into a nightmare for the national security.
Author and columnist Neena Rai highlighted that Kashmiri women took pride in having Pakistani children during the 1990s militancy. She called on the government to enforce strict measures to counter such actions and proposed revoking the citizenship of these women. She remarked that “any child of an enemy country should be immediately sent packing off to Pakistan because this is what sharia law states – children belong to the father, not mother.”
A user asserted, “There is a long queue of women from one community who are married in Pakistan,” and further questioned are they struggling to secure husbands in India, or have they been manipulated by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies?
A person mocked the “liberal Indian state” for enabling these women to live on Indian ration and minority programs, as well as facilitating their travel to Pakistan for reproductive purposes.
TEDx speaker Anuradha Tiwari expressed her astonishment regarding the number of Indian women who are married in Pakistan. She remarked that it is even more outrageous that these women qualify for minority schemes and benefits such as “Ladli Behna Yojana” and concluded, “Disgraceful betrayal of Indian taxpayers.”
Sunanada Roy outlined that former Indian women are now married to Pakistani men and lament their visa cancellations. She labeled them as traitors who do not belong to India, indicating that while they cherish Pakistan, they are unwilling to leave India. She lauded Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the decision.
Another netizen brought attention to an Indian woman with three kids whose Pakistani husband was not responding to her calls and none of her in-laws were willing to recieve the children on the other side of the border. “Married for a decade, she holds an Indian passport to access free healthcare, rations and government programs,” the individual asserted.
The marriage of Pakistani women to Indian men has also raised concerns as firebrand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Lok Sabha MP Nishikant Dubey stated that more than 500,000 women from the neighbouring nation who have married Indian men, do not have the country’s citizenship. He also demanded an investigation into the underlying motives of these marriages.
On 23rd April, three advisors to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi who were involved in defense, militar, and aviation were declared Persona Non Grata and given a week to leave India. Additionally, five members of their support staff were also told to the same. The defense attache of India also left the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. The “Leave-India” order did not apply to people with diplomatic, official or long-term visas.
On the other hand, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) defended the travel restrictions by referencing intelligence reports that linked the Pahalgam attack, resulting in the deaths of 26 civilians, to operatives based in Pakistan.
Marriages between Indian and Pakistani citizens to preserve religious, familial bonds
Once, Pakistan and India existed as one nation, characterized by a shared culture and language, despite its share of issues, until the betrayal by Islamists and their British facilitators led to its division. Consequently, numerous Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan while Hindus moved from Pakistan to India. Nevertheless, many Muslims chose to remain in India while their brothers, grandparents, families and close friends relocated to the Islamic nation.
As a result, families facilitate marriages for their children to uphold these religious and cultural ties. This is also true for the Hindu community, but the figures are negligible as their already dwindling population continues to decline because of the dreadful treatment by the Pakistani government and the extremist population of the country. It is common for marriages to occur among individuals who are familiar with one another.
According to Maulana Tehzeeb, the relationship between India and Pakistan has endured even after the partition. Many families have relatives, such as maternal uncles and aunts, who have moved to Pakistan, while other family members have stayed in India. When these relatives gather for family celebrations, new relationships are forged, resulting in marriages. The similar cultural, linguistic and food traditions between Muslims in both countries facilitate these unions.
He stated that people travel to India on visas to participate in the wedding celebrations and subsequently return to Pakistan. Occasionally, if the wedding party does not arrive, an online Nikah (Islamic wedding ceremony) is conducted, after which the bride is sent to the residence of her in-laws, whether it is located in Pakistan or India.
A Muslim intellectual from Ranchi remarked that the motivation behind these weddings is rooted in historical identity or familial ties. Such unions frequently transpire among families that were unable to remain united following the partition. Unlike the Sheikh marriages observed in Hyderabad, which involve monetary exchanges for daughters, the marriages between India and Pakistan are fundamentally grounded in family relationships.
“If I talk about myself, I am based in Ranchi and have no affiliations with Karachi, thus I do not understand the rationale behind sending my family’s daughter there or bringing a girl from that area. These kinds of relationships are often more visible in border territories,” he added.
Women from Pakistan, specifically from Amarkot and Chachro have entered into marriage in Marwar. A significant number of women belonging to the Rajput, Charan and Meghwal Muslim communities in Pakistan have relocated to India after marriage. There have been various matrimonial alliances between the two nations within the Barmer-Jaisalmer district. Several families travel to India to arrange marriages for their daughters, while others take the wedding procession to Pakistan.
According to the regulations set forth by the government, marriage itself does not need permission. Nonetheless, government orders are essential for visa acquisition, residency and change in citizenship. Moreover, security checks require government approval.
Exploitation of Indian healthcare infrastructure by Pakistanis?
It is commonly acknowledged that persons from the bordering nation regularly visit India for their medical woes. India has been providing emergency medical assistance to Pakistani citizens for decades. India frequently expedited visas for treatments that were urgent and critical. Thousands were allowed access only for humanitarian reasons, including open heart surgery, therapies for cancer and transplants.
India frequently loosened visa regulations and streamlined documentation requirements, often overlooking issues even amidst increased tensions. Indian hospitals provided medical care, often at no cost, to their Pakistani patients. Despite the numerous protections in place, India regularly demonstrated remarkable adaptability for humanitarian reasons. Urgent cases, such as those requiring visa extensions and authorization for follow-up surgeries or second opinions, often received special priority.
India’s increasing appeal as a medical tourism destination is demonstrated by the fact that more people travel to the country each year as patients from all over the world recognize and even celebrate the unique combination of cutting-edge facilities, highly qualified medical professionals and affordable treatment. The country’s medical tourism sector attracted approximately 7.3 million international patients in need of medical care, leading to a market valuation of $7.69 billion, last year.
Both domestic and international accreditation have contributed to building trust among medical tourists regarding the quality of healthcare in India. India’s neighboring countries are acutely aware of this situation, leading many to flock to India to seek medical assistance, given the dire state of healthcare in their own countries. Many Pakistani patients have reaped benefits from it.
Afsheen Gul, a 13-year-old girl from Sindh, was admitted at the Apollo Hospital in Delhi, in 2022, for corrective spinal surgery. She was able to walk, talk and eat on her own for the first time in her life following the treatment. Zafar Ahmed Lali (57) was flown to India in 2015 to undergo a high-risk heart operation at the Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai. The surgeons in India successfully completed the procedure and gave him a new lease on life, despite the complication due to several blockages and a malfunctioning valve.
Noor Fatima, a Pakistani child, was given a fresh lease of life in 2003 after receiving free heart surgery in India. Late Sushma Swaraj, the then-minister of external affairs, urgently granted visas for a liver transplant for a Pakistani man and 3-year-old child for an open heart surgery, in 2017.
This illustrates why Indian women who marry in Pakistan eventually return to the country to deliver their babies or to receive medical care, as the former severely lags behind India in various aspects, including healthcare infrastructure. More importantly, an Indian visa and their families as well as relatives within the nation further eases the process for them.
What happened in Kashmir in the 1990s
The radicals in Kashmir blatantly granted Islamic terrorists access to their young daughters and wives in the dark decades of militancy, viewing every terrorist with a gun as a hero, reported Business World. There were very few men in Kashmir who were angry at the terrorists for using the women, even young girls in their families as sex objects. There are accounts of women being proud that a Jihadi, rather than their spouse, fathered their first child. During the peak of terrorism in the 1990s, the slogan “Pakistan jaayenge, bachha leke aayenge” (We hope to be impregnated by a Jihadi from Pakistan) became a war cry among Kashmiri women.
These vile stories of sexual perversity were ignored to portray the perpetrators as helpless victims of a fascist Indian state and the terrorists as brave and moral freedom fighters. The Indian army is replete with anecdotes from apprehended terrorists who were promised attractive Kashmiri women as a reward for their violence and mayhem.
According to Indian army sources, Burhan Wani who rose to prominence as a symbol of terrorism in the valley in the last few years of his life had unrestricted access to local Kashmiri houses and the de facto right to have sex with any woman at will. Most of the time, the fathers of the girls enabled such deviant actions. Hundreds of explicit photos of Kashmiri females and an extensive list of contacts to meet his sexual cravings were found on Wani’s multiple mobile devices after he was killed by the Indian army in 2016.
Considering the startling reality of a considerable number of Indian women marrying into Pakistan, netizens could not turn a blind eye to the disturbing reality and brought it into the public attention.
Furthermore, multiple women from the Pakistan occupied Kashmir married Kashmiri men who traveled to the region for arms training to become terrorists in the 1990s. Many women even journeyed to Kashmir with their spouses via Nepal to take benefit from the Omar Abdullah government’s 2010 rehabilitation program. A 1971 ruling by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in the Mohsin Shah case states that such couples are exempt from deportation since “one person had merely travelled from one part of India to another.”
Likewise, many dreaded terrorists and separatists, including Yasin Malik have Pakistani wives. The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief’s wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick has notably held the position of special advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on human rights and women’s empowerment, under the interim administration led by Anwarul Haq Kakar.
Conclusion
It is important to recognize that Indian women who wed in Pakistan can typically return to India and utilize all the benefits and amenities available through the government, as they are still legally Indian citizens, until the government decides to restrict, or discourage cross-border weddings with Pakistan with substantive measures. They can also extend these benefits to their children who are essentially nationals of Pakistan, because young children do travel with the mother, and hospitals and other facilities in India are unlikely to turn them away on account of their citizenship. They are already coming to India to give birth, likely multiple times, and unless the Indian government brings in special measures to deal with such cases, it will continue.
Additionally, it may prove to be quite challenging to monitor and consistently oversee each of these visits. The surveillance of Pakistani citizens in India already presents serious difficulties to the authorities. 28 of the 32 Pakistanis who travelled to Kanpur in 2007 to watch a cricket match have gone missing for the past 18 years. The cricket fans came to India to attend matches during the 2007 India-Pakistan series, including one in Kanpur’s Green Park Stadium.
These people had obtained Exempted from Police Reporting (EPR) visas to enter India. They were able to move between areas with these visas without alerting the authorities. They capitalized on this and disappeared completely. Police efforts resulted in the deportation of four people, but the other twenty-eight have not been found.
It has been quite difficult to track them down because they had EPR visas, according to Rajesh Srivastava, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) of the LIU (Local Intelligence Unit). Delhi appears to be in a similarly worrisome state of affairs. A list of about 5,000 Pakistani nationals who have been ordered to leave the country has been sent to the Delhi Police by the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
Given the difficulties in tracking Pakistanis, the intricacies of locating individuals with Indian visas dispersed throughout the country would be significantly more complex. Furthermore, the potential for marriages between Indians and Pakistanis to be exploited by Pakistan for its unscrupulous purposes cannot be disregarded, as evidenced by the anti-India propaganda initiated by the spouses of Kashmiri separatists, especially Mushaal Hussein Mullick. The issue will remain a ticking time bomb for the foreseeable future.
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