Some impression Bajrangi Bhaijaan has created!
Geeta, a deaf-mute Indian woman forced to live in Pakistan after accidentally crossing the border as a child, has found her family. She will be flown home after 12 long years, as soon as her documents are sorted out, say officials.
Earlier this month, Geeta reportedly 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.
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The family lives in Bihar and is reportedly in Delhi at present.
Sources say Geeta will be flown from Karachi to Delhi on a Monday when there is a direct flight. She is likely to make this important journey with a woman who has been her mother in Pakistan – Bilkis Edhi of the Edhi foundation.
For weeks, the story of Geeta transfixed both India and Pakistan and inspired comparisons to the Salman Khan blockbuster “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”, based on the mirror-image story of a little girl from Pakistan stuck in India.
Geeta was around 11 when she wandered over one of the world’s most militarized borders. She has since been looked after by the charitable Edhi Foundation. In her room in Karachi, she prayed before a tiny temple filled with Hindu gods.
The temple is going back with her, say Pakistani officials, who that Geeta was “all packed and ready.”
Geeta broke down in tears on watching “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” and yearned for home, something she shared with actor Salman Khan on NDTV. The actor plays Bajrangi, the man who made it his mission to reunite the girl with her family in Pakistan.
As Geeta’s story gained fresh media attention after the film, the Indian government vowed to bring her back in a movie-style happy ending.
The man believed to be Geeta’s father is Janardhan Mahto, who has five sons and two daughters. Geeta, he has claimed, is his first born Heera, who was lost in a fair in 2004.
