Story of lost, mute girl unites India, Pakistan

She said that a few days later, Savita went missing and a report was also lodged with the police station concerned, Ganesh said.

The Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan TCA Raghavan along with his wife had met Geeta on Tuesday following a direction from Swaraj and assured her of locating her family as soon as possible.

The girl, who is now 23-year-old, started living in Karachi after all efforts to trace her family in India remained unsuccessful. According to a series of tweets by Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, four families hailing from Punjab, Bihar, Jharkhand and UP have claimed Geeta as their lost daughter.

Swaraj on Saturday tweeted that the Indian government is completing all necessary formalities to bring her back.

The news channels have been showing the story of Gita drawing a similarity with the reel life character “Munni” of the Bollywood blockbuster “Bajrangi Bhaijaan“.

“This should further help in locating Geeta’s family”, added Ms Swaraj.

“Geeta conveyed to Indian High Commissioner by gestures that they are seven brothers and sisters”, Swaraj said. Then she wrote down “Vaishno Devi”. When a private TV channel in Pakistan showed her a picture of the couple, the girl couldn’t recognise them.

The couple has also attached some documents along with their application, claiming that Geeta, who is in Karachi, is their daughter, the DM said.

Geeta, 23, is believed to have mistakenly crossed into Pakistani territory as a child.

Deaf and mute, Geeta has been stuck in Pakistan for 13 years, unable to return to her native India because she cannot remember or explain exactly where she is from.

It was unclear how she came to be near the Pakistani border, on the other side of India, Edhi officials said.

At first, Geeta was kept at a home for abandoned and orphaned children in the eastern city of Lahore, where she was given the Muslim name Fatima, said Faisal Edhi, son of the charity’s founder. She was subsequently handed over to a non-government organization, the Edhi Foundation in Karachi, where she has been staying for the past 15 years.