Geeta wants to travel to search her parents

Indore, Jun 25: Geeta, the deaf and mute girl who returned to India last October after accidentally landing in Pakistan and staying there for several years, wants to undertake a train journey and search her parents.

Geeta is living at an institute for hearing and speech impaired persons here. Several couples have come forward claiming to be her parents, but she did not recognise any of them and none could substantiate their claim.

Geeta told the director of the institute Monika Punjabi in sign language that she wants to travel by train to search her parents, a press release from the Madhya Pradesh government said. Geeta claimed that she knows the place where she was separated from her parents years ago.

She might be taken to different places (to see if she could tell where she got separated), the release added. It also said that Geeta liked Indore and she would like to stay in the institution even after finding her parents.

She was illiterate when she returned to India, but now she is learning Hindi, English and arithmetic. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had met Geeta last December here and assured her that the government was making every effort to trace her parents.

Geeta was 7 or 8-years-old when she was found sitting alone in the Samjhauta Express at Lahore station by the Pakistan Rangers 15 years ago. She was then adopted by Edhi Foundation's Bilquis Edhi. Her story came to light after the release of Salman Khan-starrer 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' in which the hero reunites a Pakistani girl with her mother.

PTI