Anju, who married Pakistani Facebook friend, returns to India to meet her children

It was in July this year Anju, a 34-year-old Indian mother of two children, travelled hundreds of miles to a remote village in Pakistan to marry the man who she met and fell in love with on Facebook.

The cross-border tale of love hit headlines after the woman converted to Islam and received a new name, Fatima. Her 29-year-old Pakistani friend Nasrullah is a native of Upper Dir in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Pakistan government initially granted a 30-day visa to Anju and later extended it by one year.

Now, after four months, Anju has returned to India to meet her children. She crossed the Attari land border on Wednesday afternoon and will be flying to Delhi from Amritsar later in the day.

"She was alone, carrying a couple of pieces of luggage, and appeared very composed," the Times of India quoted a source as saying.

Anju and Nasrullah met and became friends on Facebook in 2019. They tied the knot in a local court of a district and sessions judge in Upper Dir amid tight security.

Anju was born in Kailor village in Uttar Pradesh and lived in the Alwar district of Rajasthan. She travelled to Pakistan legally from India via the Wagah-Attari border.

Anju's husband Arvind had told the media that she left home on Thursday on the pretext of going to Jaipur but later the family came to know that she was in Pakistan.

The couple has a 15-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son.