New Delhi

The father of Anju, the 35-year-old Indian woman who left her husband and children to meet her lover in Pakistan, said on Tuesday that she was as good as dead for her family back home. Anju, a Christian from Rajasthan, has reportedly got married to Nasrullah and converted to Islam as Fatima. 

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Anju has two children back in India, a 13-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. "She has ruined the lives of her two children," said her father Gaya Prasad Thomas while speaking to reporters at Bouna village in the Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh.

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“The way she ran away leaving her two children and husband behind.... she did not even think of her children. If she wanted to do this, she should have divorced her husband first. She is no more (alive) for us,” he said.

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When asked if she had converted to Islam, he said he had no information in this regard. “What will happen to her children, her husband? Who will take care of her children – a 13-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy? She has ruined the future of her children and her husband. Who will take care of her kids....We will have to do it,” Thomas said.

Anju, now Fatima, disowned by her family

Asked whether he will appeal to the Indian government to bring her back, Thomas said he would do no such thing. "I pray...to let her die there," he added.

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Thomas also said that Anju was not on speaking terms with him, and spoke only to her mother. “I don't know how she got the passport and the visa,” he said. 

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Asked about speculation in some quarters that there could be something more to the incident as his village is close to Tekanpur town where a major unit of the Border Security Force (BSF) is stationed, Thomas rejected the suggestion vehemently.

"No one raised any such issue with us. Only you (the media) are raising this question. My kids have no criminal tendencies. I am ready to have any probe in the matter,” he said. 

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On Monday, Thomas had described his daughter as “mentally disturbed and eccentric”. Earlier in the day, a report said that Anju married her Facebook friend in Pakistan after converting to Islam and now has a new name, Fatima.

The 34-year-old Indian woman was staying at her 29-year-old Pakistani friend Nasrullah's home in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

(With inputs from agencies)

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