Janjivan Bureau
Karachi:Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Geeta, a deaf-mute Indian woman forced to live in Pakistan after accidentally crossing the border in childhood. Now she will be flown to Delhi on October 26, to be reunited with her family after 12 long years.
“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.
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.
The family lives in Bihar and is reportedly in Delhi at present.
Geeta will travel from Karachi to Delhi 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 shared that Geeta was “all packed and ready.”
Geeta broke down in tears on watching “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” and yearned for home. The actor plays Bajrangi, the man who made it his mission to take the girl to 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.