The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday, October 15, said that Geeta, the deaf and mute young Indian woman who wandered into Pakistan twelve years ago will be brought back to India.
The Indian High Commission in Islamabad emailed pictures of a family in Bihar, to the charitable Edhi Foundation where Geeta now lives in the port city of Karachi. She recognised the photos of her siblings and her parents. She will be flown from Karachi to Delhi with a woman who has been her mother in Pakistan – Bilkis Edhi of the Edhi foundation.
“The Indian government had already given us probable dates of 19 or 26 October,” Anwar Kazmi, an Edhi official said about Geeta’s travel plans. “Documentation is being prepared for the departure dates.
Geeta had mistakenly crossed the India-Pakistan border when she was around 11 years old. She was then noticed by Pakistani Rangers who later handed her over to Pakistan’s largest non-governmental social welfare organisation Edhi Foundation. Her case gained prominence in the media after Salman Khan’s recent blockbuster film Bajrangi Bhaijaan hit the theatres. The movie was based on a similar theme where the protagonist helped a Pakistani girl re-unite with her parents after getting stranded in India.
Since the release of the film, many families in India have been claiming that Geeta is their daughter all of which were being verified by the authorities.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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