Image source, Bangalore Police Image caption,

Police say Iqra and Mulayam met online in 2020 during Covid lockdown

By Anant Zanane and Imran Qureshi

BBC Hindi

In January, an Indian man was arrested for helping a Pakistani woman enter the country illegally and get a fake ID card.

The person he helped was his wife.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, 21, from India and Iqra Jeewani, 19, from Pakistan met and fell in love online three years ago, while playing the board game Ludo. But they knew it would be hard for them to be together.

India and Pakistan share a fraught relationship - the neighbours have fought three wars since 1947, when India was partitioned on independence and Pakistan created. This can make it hard for people to get visas to travel to see each other.

So last September, Mulayam and Iqra travelled to Nepal, where they got married. They then travelled to the Indian city of Bangalore (Bengaluru) - the capital of Karnataka state - and lived together.

But their happy life turned tragic in January - Ms Jeewani was detained for entering India illegally while Mr Yadav was arrested and charged with fraud, forgery and providing shelter to a foreign national without proper documents.