BHOPAL (Madhya Pradesh): Having made a dramatic return from Pakistan years ago, Geeta, 30, now wants to become self-reliant and wishes to teach deaf and dumb children.
Hearing-and-speech-impaired Geeta, who returned to India in 2015 after staying in Pakistan for 15 years, was in the city on Tuesday.
In talks with the media at the headquarters of the MP Government Railway Police (GRP), she said that she has become more adept in sign language after her return to India and that she is learning Marathi, the language of her family. “I don’t like illiteracy. I want to make people literate,” she said in sign language, with the help of an interpreter, Gyanendra Purohit from Anand Service Society, Indore.
Geeta was found at the Karachi Railway Station in the year 2000 when she was 8. She was taken under care by Edhi Welfare Trust, a Pakistan-based NGO. As she did not remember her name, she was named Fatima. When the Trust realized that she was a Hindu, she was renamed, Geeta. A small temple was also constructed there at her request.
She expressed her wish to stay in India. “I like India because in Pakistan the people eat non-vegetarian food,” she said sarcastically.
Geeta, who was united with her family in the Parbhani district of Maharashtra in 2021, said that she doesn’t want to get married. She lives with her mother Meena Pandhre and her sister in her village in Parbhani.
Geeta expressed her gratitude towards the Madhya Pradesh GRP and Anand Service Society, Indore, where she stayed till her parents were located. She said that the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had helped her a lot. “Sushma’s death shattered me. I could not stop crying,” she said.
'Geeta visited Bhopal to thank us'
IG (Rail), MP, MS Shikarwar said that Geeta had come to Bhopal to thank the GRP, Indore police and the NGOs which helped her during her stay in the state.
The IG said that the GRP managed to locate Geeta’s family with the help of only two clues given by her in sign language - that there was a railway track and a hospital near her home. “Our men visited many states with her to locate her parents. But still, it took six years,” he said. SP (Rail), Bhopal Hitesh Chaudhary was also present.
Representatives from Pahal, a Maharashtra-based NGO, which is teaching sign language to her, also spoke to the media persons.
