Will Bring Back Geeta, Promises Sushma
NEW DELHI: Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday said that Geeta, a differently-abled woman who is believed to have crossed into Pakistani territory 13 years ago, would be brought back to India.
"Our High Commissioner believes that Geeta is an Indian," Sushma tweeted late on Tuesday, after Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan T C A Raghavan met the 23-year-old woman, who can neither speak nor hear, in Karachi.
Raghavan and his wife Ranjana visited Edhi Foundation on Tuesday, a day after getting direct instructions from Sushma to do so.
"We will bring her back," Sushma said, but noted that "some formalities" would have to be completed first.
"We are grateful to all institutions and individuals in Pakistan who looked after her," she added.
Earlier, speaking to media in Karachi, Raghavan assured that India would try to locate Geeta's family. "Humanity is a responsibility and both countries should work on it," he urged.
Before his meeting with Geeta, Raghavan also thanked Edhi Foundation for keeping her under its fold.
At Edhi Foundation's shelter, the diplomat was shown the separate prayer room for Geeta, which she had decorated with posters of Hindu deities. Raghavan also went through her notebook, in which she had written in Roman Hindi that she was from India. In some lines, she mentioned that her house number was 193. She also wrote some sentences in Devanagari script, but they were not legible.
Geeta's plight came to fore after Bollywood film Bajrangi Bhaijaan, with a strikingly similar tale, became a hit in Pakistan.