It is yet to be clear if Seema Haider’s story turns out to be a leaf out of the celebrated cross-border love story Ghadar or a fascinating spy-thriller as Indian agencies are trying to crack the case open, looking into the digital and data footprints of the Karachi resident who came to India to be with her Indian lover Sachin of Greater Noida.
However, the most confounding aspect is the seeming lack of solid, irrefutable digital data on Seema. Numerous intelligence agencies have been trying to find verifiable data on Seema that would either corroborate her story or help Indian agencies build a case against her.
This lack of data stems from the fact that Seema and Sachin have both destroyed several personal devices that they owned and the SIM cards that were used in those devices once Seema and her children came to India.
Nevertheless, multiple ways are using which Indian agencies can still recover Seema Haider’s digital data.
Through Google
Seema and Sachin were using Android devices – this can be corroborated by the fact that they met in July while playing PUBG. For users to use an Android device in any meaningful way, be it to use social media apps or to download and play games, they will need a Google account. The ATS will have to locate just one of Seema’s Google accounts; following this, they can instruct Google to share the cache of stored data against this account. And yes, Google will have all, if not held, data that would crack this case wide open.
Through Meta
The most common way to log in to PUBG or any other Android game or app is by allowing the app or service to access your Google account details or through Meta’s Facebook. If Seema had an Instagram account, Meta would have those details, as well as every DM that has been through the profiles associated with that account. And given that the devices were deleted in India and the machines were destroyed here, Meta or Google shouldn’t be able to create any issues over Seema being a Pakistani citizen, and therefore out of bound for Meta India and Google India
If Seema had ever used WhatsApp, Indian agencies would have an even bigger cache of data, possibly her messages. At the very least, they can find the mobile numbers associated with the destroyed devices and go from there.
Through the video-calling platform they were using.
In several interviews, Seema told reporters that she and Sachin would often show each other how India and Pakistan were, which means they used some video calling app. Even though knowing what happened in those video calls is impossible, we still can find many things. For example, the timings and duration of the video calls would corroborate their love story. Furthermore, other details, such as who Seema spoke to over video calls, would also go a long way in helping with the investigation.
Through PUBG’s servers
PUBG was banned in India for the first time in September 2020, whereas Seema and Sachin met on the platform way earlier. Although the game was banned years ago, Tencent still has troves of data and data profiles that it had collected back then and has access to it as well. While it may be pointless to ask Tencent to share that data, there are several other channels that Indian agencies can go through, officially and otherwise.
