NEW DELHI: Reel life is actually real life for Geeta, 23, a differently-abled woman who is believed to have crossed into Pakistani territory 13 years ago, but could not find her way back. Her plight has now reached External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who has instructed the Indian envoy to meet her in Karachi.
The Pakistan Rangers had taken Geeta, who could neither speak nor hear, to a shelter in Karachi, run by charity network Edhi Foundation.
Though Edhi Foundation and Pakistani activist Ansar Burney have been trying to locate her family since then, all their efforts went in vain.
The search gained momentum with the release of Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which has a plot line strikingly similar to Geeta’s story.
On Sunday, Burney tweeted a link of his Facebook campaign to Sushma, which said “in search of a family of missing Indian girl”.
In her response on Monday, the minister said,“I have asked Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan T C A Raghavan to go to Karachi with Mrs Raghavan and meet this girl”.
Raghavan and his wife are now likely to fly to Karachi on Wednesday.
Unable to hear or speak, Geeta copies words in Hindi from books and sometimes points frantically at map of India on a mobile phone.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan has a similar story, with Salman Khan taking the risk to sneak into Pakistan to get back ‘Munni’, a diffabled Pakistani girl, to her rightful family in PoK. In his quest, he is helped by sympathetic government officials and a journalist.