External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has met Geeta, the deaf and mute girl who is with an NGO after coming back from Pakistan nearly two months ago, and said today that the girl is happy with the efforts made by the government to locate her parents.
"I met Geeta in Indore yesterday. She is very happy. She appreciates our earnest efforts to find her family," Swaraj tweeted.
Despite various efforts by the External Affairs Ministry, no family has been identified as Geeta's even though many have come forward claiming her to be their daughter including a Muslim family. Geeta has been residing with an NGO in Indore since October 26 after she returned from Pakistan.
Swaraj met Geeta at a hotel last night and assured her that the government is trying hard to locate the whereabouts of her parents, said Monika Punjabi Verma, head of the sign language department of an institute run by the NGO in Indore.
"As soon as the girl reached Swaraj's place, the overwhelmed Minister hugged her. In a 30-minute meeting, the Minister assured the girl that the government is employing all possible means to trace her parents to re-unite her with them," Verma said.
Geeta had crossed into Pakistan accidentally as a child. She stayed there for over a decade and was taken care of by Edhi Foundation's Bilquis Edhi.
Earlier this month, Swaraj had also made a fervent appeal to locate the family of Geeta and tweeted about her identification marks and location of her house at the time she accidentally crossed-over. The Minister also released a picture of Geeta to show how she would have looked 10 years back.
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Meanwhile, Geeta failed to recognise yet another applicant who claimed to be her mother.
The Indore district authorities have dismissed the application filed yesterday by Aneesa Bi, a 40-year-old woman from Jabalpur district, who said Geeta was her daughter Najjo who went missing from Gotegaon in Narsinghpur district 13 years ago.
"I showed the photograph of Aneesa and her family members to Geeta, but she refused to recognise them. So far, eight persons have claimed that she is their daughter or relative, which she has denied," Verma said.
In November, a couple from Bihar had claimed that Geeta was their daughter. But DNA test proved that she wasn't related to them.
Before that, Geeta did not recognise a couple from Uttar Pradesh.
Geeta was reportedly 7 or 8 years old when she was found sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express at Lahore station by the Pakistan Rangers 15 years ago.
