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I miss mom, dad a lot, says Indian girl in Karachi

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I miss mom, dad a lot, says Indian girl in Karachi

Geeta communicates using sign language and (right) the map and words scribbled on a page in her diary.

Dubai - For 13 years in Karachi, deaf and mute Indian girl waits to go home.

Published: Tue 4 Aug 2015, 12:00 AM

Updated: Wed 5 Aug 2015, 10:48 AM

  • By
  • KT Web team report

Whenever the door of her room opens, she tries to run away. Every time she sees a helicopter or airplane fly, she tearfully points at it.
Geeta cannot express her grief in words. She cannot hear any consolable words. Her disability to speak and hear restricts her expressions to writing broken Hindi in a diary.
Maa Baap Bahut Yaad Aatay Hai, Mai Unse Bahut Pyar Karti Hoon (I miss mom, dad a lot, I love them a lot)," she writes.
She draws a rough map of India. In broken Hindi, she writes the names of few states as Jammu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. When Geeta misses her family, she makes untidy sketches of her family naming them - mother, father and Guddi.
Jharkhand, Telangana and number 193 are the words that she often writes in her diary.
Originally hailing from India, Geeta lives in a shelter home for needy, Edhi Home in Karachi, Pakistan.
Her story is a real life version of Bollywood blockbuster, Bajranghi Baijaan. Fifteen years back, she was found near the Wagha Border Railway station in Pakistan. Barely seven years old, she was found crying and wailing by the Pakistani police.
The police took her and questioned her whereabouts which she was unable to verify due to her disability. Police tried every way to trace the family of the girl but failed.
In order to provide shelter to her, Geeta was put in Edhi Centre at Karachi where she has been living for 13 years.
The girl could not utter her name and kept saying 'Gee' which is why she was named Geeta at the Edhi Centre, said Ansar Burney, former federal minister for human rights in Pakistan, while speaking to Khaleej Times. Burney has been actively involved in tracing Geeta's family since 2012. He is involved in several social works and runs a trust, Ansar Burney Trust International in Pakistan.
"I meet her regularly. She is very lonely and misses home a lot."
Burney revealed that Geeta has seven brothers and four sisters which they could make out from her writing. She may be called Guddi at her home, he added. After media reports, Indian External affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj asked Indian High Commissioner in Pakistani TCA Raghawan to meet Geeta.
Burney said during his visit to India in September, he would meet government authorities in India and seek their assistance in taking Geeta home. "I am going to meet Dalai Lama. During my visit I would do what is possible to help Geeta."
reporters@khaleejtimes.com
Recent acts of Indo-Pak cooperation
> Over 3,700 Pakistani nationals have been given long-term visa by the Indian government during 2013-14.
> April 2015: 11 Indians sailing from Yemen rescued by Pakistan, sent home in special flight.
> December 2014: India's BSF returns four-year-old Pakistani child who had inadvertently crossed the border.
> March 2015: Pakistani liver patient undergoes life-saving surgery after 12 Indian students donate blood.
> May 2015: 57-year-old overweight Pakistani heart patient saved by Mumbai doctors
> December 2014: Pakistani boy undergoes successful facial reconstruction in Chennai
> July 2008: Pakistani toddler Noor Fatima undergoes high-risk heart surgery in Bangalore.

Geeta communicates using sign language and (right) the map and words scribbled on a page in her diary.

Geeta communicates using sign language and (right) the map and words scribbled on a page in her diary.



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