Seema Haider case: SSB suspends 2 personnel who checked bus at border

The SSB, which guards the India-Nepal border, has suspended an inspector and a jawan for alleged dereliction of duty in checking the bus in which Pakistani national Seema Haider entered the country and reached Greater Noida near Delhi, official sources said on Thursday.

Inspector Sujit Kumar Verma and Head constable Chandra Kamal Kalita of the 43rd Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were responsible for checking the passenger vehicle on May 13 in the border district of Siddharth Nagar in Uttar Pradesh as it crossed over to India from the neighbouring country.

Haider was on board this bus along with her four children.

The sources told PTI that the SSB inspector and the jawan have been suspended, pending a full inquiry. A full court of inquiry procedure will begin against them and all the aspects of the incident that were not covered during the preliminary investigation will be probed now, besides the role of other personnel on duty that day.

The force had initiated a basic probe after reports of Haider being arrested in Greater Noida surfaced, they said.

SSB officials refused to comment on the development despite repeated attempts.

The SSB, a paramilitary force under the Union home ministry, is tasked with guarding the open 1,751-km-long India-Nepal international front on the country's eastern flank.

The sources said it was "humanly impossible" to check and frisk the credentials of each individual crossing over to India from Nepal as it was an open border and the nationals of the two countries can travel without a visa.

Nationals from a third country are not allowed to cross this border without a valid visa and travel documents but in the case of people from countries in India's neighbourhood, it becomes very difficult to ascertain who is who because of similar physical features and mannerisms, they said.

Haider, 30, who hails from the Sindh province in Pakistan, has said that she came here to live with her Indian lover Sachin Meena (22) in the Rabupura area of Greater Noida.

While she was arrested on July 4 for illegally entering India without a visa via Nepal with her four children, all aged below seven years, Meena was put behind bars for sheltering the illegal immigrants.

However, they both were granted bail by a local court on July 7 and have been living together along with the woman's four children in a house in Rabupura.

Haider has also said she does not wish to go back to Pakistan and wants to live with Sachin. She has also claimed to have adopted Hinduism.

The couple first got in touch in 2019 over the online game PUBG.