NEW DELHI: Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj directed India’s Ambassador to Pakistan Dr TCA Raghavan to pursue the case of a hearing and speech-impaired Indian woman who has been stranded in Pakistan for at least 15 years, said a report published on Hindustan Times.
In a post on Twitter on Monday, Swaraj said: “I have asked Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Dr TCA Raghavan to go to Karachi with Mrs Raghavan and meet this girl.”
She was responding to Ansar Burney’s tweet who, following the success of Bollywood flick Bajrangi Bhaijaan which features Salman Khan overcoming all odds to take a deaf and mute girl back to her relatives in Pakistan, has launched a fresh campaign to reunite the woman with her family in India.
“I went to India three years ago with photos and video of Geeta to try and find her family but I couldn’t trace any leads. My trust has started a cross-border campaign to try and find Geeta’s relatives so that she can be handed over to them,” Burney told Hindustan Times on phone from Britain.
“The girl, whose age is about 22 to 24, keeps telling me through gestures that she wants to fly back home in an airplane. Sometimes, she cries a lot. I pray to Allah that she is reunited with her family soon,” Bilquis told Hindustan Times.
The woman apparently entered Lahore on a train from India almost 15 years ago. She was found by police and sent to a state-run shelter, reportedly.