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Tuesday 20 August 2013

Deaf, mute, abandoned: Indian woman stranded in Pakistan for 13 years


Woman

 She was around eight years old when Pakistani authorities found her disoriented and lost on a train and sent her to a destitute home in Lahore.

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Geeta, Meetu, Guddi, Fatima... no one knows the real name of this 21-year-old deaf and mute Indian woman stranded in Pakistan for 13 years now. Related: India yet to identify prisoner who died in Pakistan jail

She was around eight years old when Pakistani authorities found her disoriented and lost on a train and sent her to a destitute home in Lahore. Last year, she was shifted to Karachi and lives with a family that runs a charity orphanage there.

Since August last year, officials have made new attempts to find her family, with Indian High Commission officials in Pakistan getting consular access to meet her.

'Geeta', sources said, can write a bit in Hindi and has managed to convey that she is from India and that her mother called her 'Guddi'. She was apparently sleeping on a train with her mother, who was not there when she woke up. Officials gathered that her father's name was probably Anil and her mother was called Amat.

Officials suspect she belongs to either Gujarat or Rajasthan or Punjab and the external affairs ministry wrote to the state governments in April to try and trace her family.

Punjab Police began hunting for her family in May and spread information to border police stations. 'Geeta's' pictures have been pasted on village walls too.

"We are trying our best to find Geeta's family. In case anyone has any information about this unfortunate child's family they should get in touch with the local police," said R K Jaiswal, DIG (Intelligence), Punjab.


Source : DNA ,Chandigarh ;  20th August 2013

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