Kiran Bala with her first husband, Narinder Singh
Triggering concern in Delhi, a Sikh woman visiting a well-known gurdwara in Pakistan for Baishaki has sought an extension of her visa, claiming that she has converted to Islam and married a Lahore resident. The woman, identified as 32-year-old Kiran Bala from Punjab, had gone missing in Islamabad five days ago but claimed in a letter sent to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry that she had married Mohammad Azam at the Jamia Naeemia seminary in Lahore on April 16.
In the letter, which was handed over to Indian officials Thursday, Bala identified herself as Amina Bibi. “Now in the given circumstances, the undersigned could not return back to India and the undersigned has received life threats of assassination, therefore, the undersigned intends to extend her visa,” the letter stated.
When contacted by The Indian Express, Bala’s in-laws in Hoshiarpur said she was a widow with three young children whom she left behind, and that they had noticed her talking for long periods of time on the phone over the last month. “We fear she may have been trapped by the ISI. My only request is to bring her back,” said Tarsem Singh, the father-in-law of Bala and a gurdwara granthi at Garhshankar town. Singh said Bala’s husband died in a road accident in Hoshiarpur’s Mahilpur five years ago.
Government sources told The Indian Express that they were concerned over whether Bala had married the Pakistani national of her own free will or had been forced. “The last thing we want is another Indian national suffering like Uzma Ahmad did,” they said.
They were referring to the case of Delhi resident Uzma Ahmad who married a Pakistani national she met in Malaysia. Uzma later claimed that her husband had four children from a previous marriage, and that she was forcibly married at gunpoint in Pakistan and sexually assaulted. Last May, she sought protection at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and was brought back to India.
Sources said Bala had gone to Pakistan on April 12 with a group of around 800 Sikh pilgrims, leaving behind a 12-year-old daughter and two sons aged eight and six.
”She went to attend the festival at Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hasan Abdal near Islamabad. Her visa will expire on April 21. Since Indian High Commission officials were not allowed to meet the pilgrims over the last few days, her disappearance did not come to their notice. But a head count is taken every day of the pilgrims…this means Pakistani authorities were aware that she had gone missing. They did not inform us,” sources said.
Last Sunday, India had lodged a strong protest with Pakistan for preventing visiting Sikh pilgrims from meeting Indian diplomats and consular teams in the country.
Under the circumstances, government sources said, the safety of the pilgrims is the responsibility of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). “We have asked for a full investigation into how she disappeared from the jatha,” sources said.
Bala’s in-laws said she called them on April 16 to inform that she had converted to Islam, changed her name and married a man from Lahore through a “proper nikah”.
”We thought that she was joking. But I received a call from the BBC yesterday asking about the remarriage of my daughter-in-law in Pakistan. That’s when I realised that her phone call was not a joke,” said Tarsem Singh, her father-in-law.
”She was desperate to go to Pakistan with the jatha and repeatedly asked me to send her through my contacts in the SGPC. Over the last month, she was continuously on her phone. Sometimes, she would lock herself up in her room to talk on the phone. When we asked her about it, she said she was talking to relatives,” he said.
Sources in the family said Bala, a Hindu, had a “love marriage” in 2005 with Tarsem Singh’s elder son Narinder, who was working as a labourer in Delhi at the time. In 2013, Narinder died after being hit by a truck in Mahilpur where he was employed with a gas agency, they said. “After Narinder’s death, we wanted her to marry our younger son Jeeta because she had three children to take care of, but he refused,” said Singh.