Indian Sikh woman fails to return; Pakistan police say converted, married local Muslim

Lahore/Chandigarh: An Indian Sikh woman, who had entered Punjab province of Pakistan with a pilgrims' group earlier this month, has converted to Islam and married a local Muslim man who she had met on social media, Lahore police said Saturday.

In India's Punjab state, her disappearance is being investigated, police from Kapurthala district said.

Sarabjeet Kaur, 48, was among around 2,000 Indian Sikh pilgrims who travelled to Pakistan via Wagah border to attend the festivities related to the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. The pilgrims returned home on November 13, but Kaur was found missing.

“Kaur contracted marriage with Nasir Hussain of Sheikhupura district, some 50 kms from Lahore, a day after her arrival in Pakistan on November 4 and declared that she converted to Islam and married out of free will,” a senior police officer in Lahore told PTI.

“The couple has gone into hiding and police are searching for them,” he added.

When asked whether the intelligence agencies took the couple into custody, he declined to comment but repeated that the police are trying to find the duo.

A copy of her Nikah nama (marriage certificate) available with PTI, shows Kaur (whose Muslim name now is Noor) married Nasir Hussain, a resident of Sheikhupura's Farooqabad area.

In a video circulated on social media, Kaur said she “loves” Nasir Hussain and that she knew him for nine years through social media. She said she is a divorcee and wanted to marry him.

In the court of judicial magistrate Muhammad Khalid Mahmood Warriach, Kaur said no one has abducted her and she is “happily married to Nasir Hussain,” the video showed.

Also, she said she brought nothing from India except the clothes she was wearing.

Kaur is a native of Amanipur village in Kapurthala district of India.

Meanwhile, in India's Punjab state, her disappearance is being investigated, police said on Saturday.

According to the police, she had a passport issued to her by the Regional Passport Office in India’s Jalandhar in January 2024.

Kapurthala Assistant Superintendent of Police Dheerendra Verma said her disappearance is under probe but said there is no information about her conversion.

Another police officer had earlier said Kaur has three cases of cheating and fraud registered against her – two at Kapurthala City Police Station and one at Kot Fatta Police Station in Bathinda.

“However, proceedings of these cases in courts are almost over,” the officer said.

The video also showed Kaur saying that “some people” entered Hussain’s house after she contracted the marriage and misbehaved with both of them. “They (unknown people) forced us to go with them and threatened to register a false case against us for non-compliance,” Kaur claimed. She urged the Pakistan government to provide safety to her and her husband.

Earlier it was said Kaur's husband has been living abroad for the past many years. She has two sons.

India's Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee secretary Partap Singh said they had just forwarded the list of pilgrims, and it is the job of the government to carry out background checks.

Kaur's case is not the first such incident.

In 2018, Kiran Bala from Hoshiarpur district was part of a jatha to Pakistan and went missing there. Later, she converted to Islam and married a Pakistani man, after which she was renamed Amna Bibi.

She had left her three children behind. Her husband had died in 2013.