December 14, 2024 23:49 (IST)
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Geeta returns to India from Pak after 15 yrs, Sushma Swaraj welcomes her
New Delhi, Oct 26 (IBNS) In an emotional and historic homecoming, speech and hearing impaired Geeta, who got stuck up in Pakistan for some 15 years, returned to India on Monday.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has welcomed Geeta and met her as well.
"Geeta - Welcome home our daughter," Swaraj tweed on Monday.
Geeta also told Swaraj that even as she stayed in Pakistan for so many years, her heart has always been in India.
"My heart has always been in India. Geeta tells EAM @SushmaSwaraj," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.
Some 15 years after she strayed across the border and got stuck up in Pakistan, Geeta came back to India on Monday morning to be reunited with her family.
Reports said Geeta landed in the international airport in Delhi from a Pakistan International Airlines flight from Karachi at 10.20am.
She was clad in a red and white salwar-kameez.
Geeta was accompanied by five representatives of the Edhi Foundation, including Bilqees Edhi, the Pakistani woman who adopted her and took her care all these years.
Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan’s largest charity, told reporters they would stay in touch with Geeta through social media and even visit her.
Geeta, now 23,, was received at the airport by officials from the external affairs ministry and senior Pakistani diplomats.
Indian authorities are proceeding cautiously, according to MEA sources, because at least four families had come forward to claim her.
Her DNA samples will now be examined to ascertain her family.
The woman apparently entered the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on a train from India almost 15 years ago. She was found by police and sent to a state-run shelter.
She was then moved from one shelter to another – because she often tried to escape and quarrelled with staff – before she arrived at the Edhi Foundation. It was Bilqees Edhi who named her Geeta.
Geeta was just seven or eight years old when she was found sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express by the Pakistan Rangers at the Lahore railway station.
Geeta has identified her father, step-mother and siblings from a photograph sent to her by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. The family lives in Bihar.
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