Geeta’s back home after Pakistan stay
Print Edition
A mute and deaf Indian woman who strayed into Pakistan over a decade ago finally returned to her home country yesterday but soon said she couldn’t recognize the family she thought was hers.
The young woman, known only as Geeta, smiled, waved and fought back tears after landing at New Delhi airport clutching bouquets of flowers and escorted by charity workers and officials.
She was hopeful of reuniting with people that she believed were her long-lost family after identifying them earlier this month in photographs delivered by Indian officials in Pakistan.
But in a tragic twist just hours after arriving in Delhi, Geeta told officials she did not know the Mahato family from India’s eastern state of Bihar.
“She recognized one family after we showed her their pictures. But after meeting the Mahato family today, she could not recognize them,” Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said at a press conference alongside Geeta.
Geeta’s story has been closely followed in both countries in recent months at a time of heightened tensions between the arch rivals.
Geeta remained upbeat despite the disappointment, with a sign language interpreter saying: “She used to be sad in Pakistan but after coming here she is happy.”
Swaraj said Geeta would be placed in an institution if DNA test results confirmed that the family was not hers and would keep searching for her real one.
Geeta was 11 or 12 when she crossed one of the world’s most militarized borders from neighboring India. She became stuck in Pakistan because she was unable to identify herself or say where she came from.
Now believed to be in her early 20s, Geeta remained in the care of Pakistan’s largest welfare organization, the Edhi Foundation, living in a shelter in the port city of Karachi.
Even the name “Geeta” was given to her by Edhi staff.
In an interview this month, Geeta was confident the family from Bihar was hers and had kept their framed photograph in a steel case ever since seeing it.
Before meeting her yesterday, the family also voiced confidence, saying they were looking forward to reuniting with her. “It’s been a long wait. We thank both the countries for their efforts to unite Geeta with the family,” Vinod Kumar Mahato, who says he is her brother, said as he waited at Delhi airport garlands in hand, hoping to meet her.
But questions remained, with the Bihar family saying the daughter they lost was married and had a baby when she disappeared. It is believed Geeta was not yet a teenager when she was found in the eastern city of Lahore by Pakistani police.
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