Sushma meets Pakistani teenager in Bhopal, says India ready to help

Bhopal, Nov 22: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday met Ramzan, a 14-year-old Pakistani national staying at an orphanage here in the Madhya Pradesh capital, and urged the neighbouring country to help the boy meet his mother.

"India wants Ramzan to go to his mother in Karachi. Pakistan will have to accept that Ramzan is Pakistan's citizen. Even if there is no permit and travel documents, the Indian government is ready to give visa to Ramzan's mother," Sushma Swaraj told reporters.

Ramzan, a resident of Karachi, was living with his parents. However, due to strained relations with his mother, his father left for Bangladesh along with him, only to marry another woman.

According to sources, on being ill-treated continuously by his step-mother, Ramzan fled his home and through various routes reached Bhopal.

On finding him abandoned, members of Child Line, an childcare centre, brought him to the orphanage.

Reports said Sushma Swaraj will on Monday visit Indore where she will meet Geeta, who, after a decade, returned to India after being handed over to the Indian authorities by Pakistan.

Geeta was around 11 years old when she crossed over to Pakistan by mistake in 2003.

In Lahore, Pakistan Rangers handed her over to the Edhi Foundation, a social welfare organisation, that looked after her since then. She returned to India on October 26.

IANS