Their love affair throughout one of many world’s most closely guarded borders had begun on the digital battlefields of a online game the place gamers bond over having each other’s again towards bloody enemy ambushes to change into the final survivors.

But when Seema Ghulam Haider, 27, a married Pakistani Muslim, sneaked into India along with her 4 youngsters to be with Sachin Meena, 22, a Hindu man, their time collectively was temporary. About two months after they began secretly dwelling in the identical neighborhood exterior New Delhi, the couple bumped into the Indian authorities.

This week, Ms. Haider and her youngsters had been arrested on prices of getting illegally entered India; Mr. Meena and his father had been additionally arrested, on prices that quantity to little in need of conspiring to shelter an enemy.

“I don’t want to go back,” Ms. Haider advised reporters as she was taken away by the police, her befuddled youngsters subsequent to her. “I want to marry Sachin. I love him a lot. I left everything for him.”

Mr. Meena additionally affirmed his love.

“We just want the government to let us marry and build a family,” he mentioned as he and his father had been arrested.

Among the hurdles the lovers face, maybe the largest is the acrimony between their respective homelands.

India and neighboring Pakistan — a rustic that was carved out of India in 1947 because the final act of British colonial rule — have fought many wars. Tensions are so excessive that even suspicious pigeons crossing the border have ended up in detention on prices of spying. Getting a visa is a bit like profitable a lottery.

And in each international locations, interfaith relations have change into a minefield.

In Pakistan, the place Islamic extremism is entrenched, frequent reviews emerge of women from spiritual minorities, significantly Hindus, being married at a younger age and forcibly transformed to Islam, according to human rights groups.

In India, a robust Hindu right-wing motion condemns any interfaith relationship between a Muslim and a Hindu, calling such unions an occasion of “love jihad,” or an try by Muslim males to pursue Hindu girls with the intention of changing them to Islam. That accusation has change into half of a bigger and consistent demonization of the nation’s 200 million Muslims.

Ms. Haider and Mr. Meena met in 2019, within the digital battlefields of the hugely popular game PUBG (pronounced pub-gee). They moved on to utilizing Instagram and WhatsApp, amongst different media, in 2020.

“They both grew closer, so the desire to meet came up,” the Indian police mentioned in a press release chronicling their relationship.

Ms. Haider had been dwelling in Karachi, the place she had 4 youngsters along with her husband, Ghulam Haider, whom she married in 2014, based on the police and her father-in-law.

Ms. Haider’s cross-border romance with Mr. Meena seems to have began after her husband, a laborer, moved to Saudi Arabia for a job.

“Sachin used to talk to someone late at night, as late as 2-3 a.m.,” mentioned Birbal Meena, his uncle, who lived together with his nephew and prolonged household in a shared house in Rabupura, a city about 40 miles southeast of New Delhi.

Initially, the youthful Mr. Meena deflected questions on his telephone calls.

“Then he confessed that he was in love with a Pakistani woman and intended to marry her,” his uncle mentioned. “He also said that the woman had four children and her husband deserted her.”

“We told him, how could he bring a woman from an enemy country?” the uncle mentioned. “Sachin’s grandfather begged him, ‘Please don’t do this.’”

Nearly 4 years into their long-distance relationship, the couple met for the primary time in March in Nepal. They stayed at a lodge for per week in Kathmandu; police officers mentioned she had come with out her youngsters. She returned to Pakistan and he to India — with the promise that they might reunite, utilizing the porous border between India and Nepal.

How did they plan their route for Ms. Haider to lastly make it to India, youngsters in tow? By “searching on YouTube,” each advised reporters once they had been arrested.

The second time Ms. Haider left for Nepal, in May, she introduced her youngsters — and it was clear she had no intention of returning.

Unbeknown to her husband, who remains to be dwelling in Saudi Arabia, Ms. Haider had bought her home to fund her journey, mentioned Mir Jan Jhakrani, her father-in-law.

“Then I suddenly found the news on social media — that the Indian government had arrested her,” Mr. Jhakrani mentioned.

The couple might face a number of years in jail, probably adopted by deportation for Ms. Haider and her youngsters.

Police officers mentioned their interrogation confirmed that Mr. Meena, who earned about $100 a month at a nook retailer, had not inflated his story or lured Ms. Haider with pretend guarantees.

“She knew that he was not financially very strong,” mentioned Sudhir Kumar, the top of the Rabupura police station. “She was not impressed by his work, but by his PUBG skills.”

Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from Karachi, Pakistan.