Government to launch new campaign to find Geeta's parents

The government will launch a public campaign to find the parents of Geeta, the speech- and hearing-impaired woman who returned to India more than a decade after mistakenly foraying into Pakistan.

The campaign will be conducted through a photograph of Geeta done up "as she would have looked like when she was in India" as a young child, external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said in his weekly media briefing here on Thursday.

Geeta has been staying in a home in Indore which looks after speech and hearing impaired people like her.

Swarup said that when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj went to Indore last month to meet Geeta, she asked her how she could have looked like when she was eight.

Geeta was then done up on the basis of what she said and the result was the photograph of a grown-up Geeta with her hair tied in two plaits.

Swarup said the picture would be displayed by the public broadcaster and other media outlets.

Asked about how close a resemblance it could be between a grown-up Geeta and an eight-year-old Geeta, Swarup said there was no other option.

"This is our best bet and hope those who can recognise her as she looked back then can still come forward and we remain hopeful that Geeta can be reunited with her family."

Meanwhile, he said several families have come forward hoping that Geeta was their lost daughter, including a Muslim family.

"We sent all their photos but, according to Geeta, not a single one of them looked like her parents," he said.