Geeta, a deaf-mute Indian woman living in Pakistan after accidentally crossing the border as a child, has found her family. She will be flown to Delhi on October 26, to be reunited with her family after 12 long years. Earlier this month, Geeta identified her father, step-mother and siblings from one of the many photographs sent to her by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. “Geeta will be back in India soon. We have located her family. She will be handed over to the family only after the DNA test,” Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted this morning. The family lives in Bihar and is reportedly in Delhi at present. While India is still verifying the information surrounding Geeta’s family, Faisal says that arrangements for Geeta’s travel to New Delhi have been finalised and that she will be leaving Pakistan as soon as October 26. The persons who acted as her family for so many years, Bilquis Edhi and her son Faisal, will travel with her to India. In times such as these, when there is so much hostility between the two countries, stories like that of Geeta are heartwarming. They restore faith in humanity that we seem to be losing rapidly. The Edhi Foundation and other philanthropists deserve a great deal of credit for pursuing Geeta’s case so diligently. We see also how public attention to cases like these can alter lives. Geeta’s has certainly changed, hopefully for the better. We hope she rediscovers the family she lost as a child. The case also highlights the problem of accidental border-crossing along a long and sometimes poorly demarcated frontier, and should remind both countries to stand by agreements to swiftly restore people, especially juveniles, who wander across it by mistake. pk.shafaqna.com
