Sushma Swaraj intervenes to rescue Indian woman in Pakistan

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has directed the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan–TCA Raghavan-to travel to Karachi and meet Geeta an Indian woman who has been stranded in Pakistan for 15 years.

Pakistani channel Geo News had telecast the story on July 25 of Geeta, who is hearing and speech impaired. She currently lives with Bilqees Edhi the wife of noted humanitarian activist Abdul Sattar Edhi. The woman apparently entered Pakistani city of Lahore on a train from India almost 15 years ago. She was found by police and sent to a state-run shelter. Geeta's inability to communicate caused a lot of frustration and she was moved from one welfare home to another as she often tried to escape and fought with the staff.

On Monday, in response to a tweet by Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney regarding searching for the family of the missing girl, Swaraj said: "I have asked Indian high commissioner to Pakistan TCA Raghavan to go to Karachi with Mrs Raghavan and meet this girl." The renewed push is inspired by the success of the Bollywood film Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which features Salman Khan overcoming all odds to take a deaf and mute girl back to her relatives in Pakistan. Burney, who will be in India in September to meet the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, acknowledged the fresh effort to find the woman's parents was because of the success of the film in both countries.