Karachi, Aug 12 (ANI): A young deaf and mute Indian girl, who had strayed out of her house as a child 13 years ago, and ended up in Pakistan, is longing to go back home.
Geeta, now 21, was found by the police sitting alone and disorientated on a train that had come across the border into Lahore. She was handed over to the Edhi Foundation, who has been taking care of her ever since, reports The Dawn.
Geeta, desperate to get back to India, has tried to run away several times, but defenseless and unable to explain where her family lives, she has failed.
However, activists are now making a renewed push in the hope that Indian and Pakistani authorities can intervene to find her parents.
"It is simple for her. She thinks she will be in India as soon as she leaves us. She desperately wants to meet her family but she only knows she lives in India, nothing else," said Bilqees Edhi, Geeta's caretaker.
Geeta, who has her own form of sign language, narrated how she ended up across the border.
As a child, she said, she had become annoyed after being told off by her parents, so she left the house and kept walking for hours.
Then, she boarded a train and fell asleep. She found herself in a foreign land on waking up.
Zohra Yusuf, the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, has offered to help by taking up the case with the High Commission, and calling on the Indian media to help find her family.
Geeta's case is not first of its kind. Other cases of children straying across the border have previously been resolved with them handed back to their home country. (ANI)
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