Swaraj asks envoy to meet Indian girl stuck in Pakistan

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday directed TCA Raghavan, the Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, to meet the Indian girl, who is stuck in Pakistan for the last 15 years.

Sushma made the announcement on twitter.

After the girl, now called Geeta was found, she was taken to Lahore  and then to a Karachi shelter where Bilquis Edhi, a philanthropist known as 'The Mother of Pakistan', became quite attached to the girl.

Now 23-year-old, Geeta is believed to have mistakenly crossed into the Pakistani territory as a child. Though she has managed to recognise the Indian map on a mobile phone, she has not been successful in conveying any other information to the Edhi staff.

Sobbing silently, she frantically points first at Jharkhand and then Telangana, trying hard to tell something of her past. Using her fingers and facial expression, Geeta says she has seven brothers and four sisters.

The shelter home's staff have created a separate praying room for her, adorning it with colourful posters of Hindu deities. "She is a devout Hindu and has even put up colourful posters of Hindu deities, and an earthen lamp on the table," Human rights activist and ex-minister Ansar Burney told PTI.

Burney, who raised Geeta's issue three years ago during a visit to India, is now running a Facebook campaign for her. "Last year, officials from the Indian Consulate visited her, took her picture and records but they didn't come back," said a staffer.

Journalists, including one from India, also interviewed her but no one was able to locate her family.

The foundation activists persuaded Geeta to begin a new life in Pakistan with a Hindu boy. But she refused and made it clear she will only get married once she returns home.

I have asked Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Dr TCA Raghavan to go to Karachi with Mrs Raghavan and meet this girl. @AnsarBurney

— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) August 3, 2015