Five years after return from Pakistan, Geeta find her mother in Parbhani

A deaf and dumb Indian girl, who was rescued by a social welfare organisation in Pakistan after she mistakenly ended up in this country before being sent back to India in 2015, has finally been reunited with her real mother in Maharashtra.

Referring to the Edhi Trust in Pakistan, Pakistan-based newspaper The Dawn reported that Geeta has been in touch with the welfare organisation in Pakistan and had recently told them that she has finally found her family after over five years since her return to India.

The over five-year-long search to find Geeta’s family led to Parbhani in Maharashtra, where she is now being trained in sign language by Pahal, an NGO working for the hearing and speech impaired.

Dr Anand Selgaokar of Pahal said Geeta was handed over to Anand Services Society, another Indore-based NGO, on July 20, 2020 and Gyanendra Purohit of that NGO first came to Parbhani in December last year.

The search in the last five years involved screening process of at least a dozen families from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana and Rajasthan after claims that they were Geeta’s blood relations. Mr Purohit said the search led the NGO to Meena Waghmare (71) who lived in Jintur in Parbhani district, when her daughter Radha (Geeta) went missing.

Geeta, who is deaf and mute, had strayed into Pakistan as a child and couldn’t find her way back or help herself. Bilquees Edhi the wife of late Abdul Sattar Edhi, who runs the world famous Edhi Welfare Trust, said they had found her at a railway station in Karachi and provided shelter when she was around 12 years old.