A youth from Jammu and Kashmir who reached Gujarat with the hope of crossing the border to meet a Pakistani woman was arrested by security forces there. A 36-year-old man from Jammu and Kashmir, who had reached Khavda village in Gujarat’s Kutch district, was detained by police while he was trying to cross the border into Pakistan to meet a woman he had contacted online, officials said on Wednesday.
Imtiyaz Sheikh, a resident of Bandipora district, had gone to Kutch hoping to meet a social media influencer from Multan, Pakistan. Sheikh thought he could legally enter Pakistan through the Kutch border and so he sought assistance from local residents to get permission from the authorities.
Giving information about this, Superintendent of Police of Kutch (West) Sagar Bagmar said, ‘Sheikh had reached Khavda with the intention of crossing the border and entering Pakistan to meet a woman he had contacted online. He was taken into custody after reaching Khavda on Tuesday.’
He said that after conducting a preliminary inquiry and verifying the facts with Sheikh’s family and local police in Jammu and Kashmir, the officers found that there was no threat and he was released in the evening. Baghmar said that Sheikh appeared to be mentally unstable.
Inspector MB Chauhan said that it was not easy to go to Pakistan from Kashmir, due to which Sheikh tried to cross the border from Kutch in an attempt to find an easy way to meet the influencer. Chauhan said, ‘Sheikh was influenced by a Pakistani social media influencer from Multan city and he decided to meet the female influencer. He took the help of Google Maps and found Kutch to be the nearest.’
He said he sought the villagers’ help to get permission from the authorities to enter Pakistan legally. “We brought him to the police station after the villagers informed us,” Chauhan said.