The Story Of Minal Khan, A Pakistani Wife Of An Indian CRPF Staff

By Sushil Kutty

Munir Ahmed is the fifth happiest man in Jammu & Kashmir. The four others are the ones who have escaped the dragnet. The four (five?) who shot dead 26 Indians and a Nepal national in the Pahalgam meadow. These terrorists continue to elude security including CRPF personnel. Ahmed is also CRPF but his happiness stems from the relief his Pakistani wife got from the Jammu & Kashmir High Court.

This Munir, not to be confused with Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir, broke all rules and laws to keep his Pakistani wife Minal Khan with him in “India-administered Kashmir”. On April 29, on the verge of being deported to Pakistan, the high court stopped Minal Khan’s deportation for 14 days.

This fixation with ’14’ is a Hindu thing. Lord Ram’s ‘banwas’ was for 14 years and a life-sentence for a convict is also for 14 years. And who didn’t hum the popular ‘Chaudvi Ka Chaand Ho’? Come to think of it, over the years too many Indian women swooned in courts at the sound of ’14 saal’.

For Munir Ahmed and Minal Khan the 14 days’ relief is like 14 lifetimes. Husband-wife, lovebirds and cousins, all rolled into one, Minal Khan and Munir Ahmed were only following tradition, ‘custom’ if you may, sticking together through thick and thin. Marrying cousins is not a crime and both India and Pakistan are full of cousin-marriages. No Khap in Pakistan takes umbrage.

So after the Pahalgam massacre pointing to a massive security failure, to see a CRPF jawan win not only in courtship but also in court was nothing less than miracle except that this wasn’t just ‘cousin-love’, it was about lax implementation of laws and a judiciary not bothered about laws broken.

The news is that the “Pakistani wife got last-minute relief from deportation and returned to Jammu.” Returned from the Attari-Wagah border after being shepherded there with other Pakistanis, all of them marked for deportation. Minal Khan’s triumphant return underlines the fragility of law in the face of judicial overreach.

Another 786 Pakistanis, however, did not have Minal’s luck. Many of these others were more deserving than Minal and there were children among them, infants as young as “14 months”, pulled away from their mother’s chests and laps.

The law in India is applied unequally and nobody bothers. Not only did Minal Khan overstay in India when her visa expired, CRPF jawan Munir Ahmed kept quiet about his wife’s visa-less status and Khan made sure her Pakistani passport remained under illegal wraps.

It is such impunity that galls law-abiding ‘Hindu’ Indians. The daredevilry with which laws are broken and these are Pakistanis who are getting away with ‘murder’, so to speak, while using their illegal stay in India to rob her of her national resources.

FYI, there are tens of thousands of “Indian-Pakistani cousin-couples” happily living “ever-after” in India with children holding “green passports”.

As noted, India is fun! Minal Khan, Pakistani married to an Indian CRPF jawan, is a good-looking woman. Hers and Munir’s story reads like it was written in heaven. But her marriage was not made in heaven, they tied the proverbial knot ‘online’. Minal says she was tired waiting for a visa and, therefore, did the nikah on the world-wide web! Thing is no Muslim woman wants to delay her ‘nikah’.

The last-minute relief from the Jammu and Kashmir High Court is a gift for the risk Minal Khan took. The Integrated Check Post (ICP) at the Attari-Wagah border was no match to Minal’s luck. The J&K Police was bent on sending her back to Pakistan but the court ruled she will remain in India as a Pakistani!

This was on April 29, 2025,. Her lawyer called up to give her the glad tidings. “Munir Ahmed, who is a CRPF constable, got married to Pakistani national Minal Khan two and a half months ago. She came to India on a visit visa and then applied for a long-term visa,” the lawyer said.

That being said, Munir Ahmed is up the creek and the lawyer might be barking up the wrong tree. Munir Ahmed broke more than just a few rules, he broke several laws. And now, after India has started revoking visas granted to Pakistani passport holders, CRPF jawan will find it harder to keep his cousin by his side.

The next time Minal Khan is taken to the Wagah-Attari border, she might not be making a triumphant return. After Pahalgam, it’s like ‘Har Ghar Se Pakistani Niklega’ and it’s all-India, Pakistanis married to Indians are stumbling out, many of them with long-term visas (LTV), but more of them with visas expired and living on illegal documents, giving ‘Kagaz Nahi Dikhenge’ sinister meaning.

Minal isn’t alone in blaming India for the plight these people find themselves in. Still on an expired visa and with a Pakistani passport, to boot, Minal Khan was on her disdain-est best for being “treated like a criminal!”

Pakistan doesn’t have such a problem. Pakistan in fact refused to take back “green passport holders” by refusing to open on their side of the Attari-Wagah Integrated Check Post. Minal Khan says the Government of India has a duty towards people like her.”We should be allowed to stay with the family,” she said. “We condemn the barbaric killings of innocents in the Pahalgam attack.” Minal Khan is a Pakistani in India and, but for Pahalgam, she wouldn’t have come in from the cold! Question is, if the Census is held, “Kitne Aur Minal Khan Nikalenge? (IPA Service)