A deaf and mute Indian woman, who inadvertently strayed into Pakistan at least 12 years ago, is desperate to return home to her parents.
The woman - whom leading Pakistani rights activist Bilqees Edhi has christened Geeta as no one knows her real name - apparently entered the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on a train from India.
She was found by police and sent to a state-run shelter. However, 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 quarrelled with staff, Bilqees said on phone from Karachi on Saturday.
"Efforts made by the authorities to trace her family in India produced no results and she was finally sent to Karachi. She must be about 21 or 22 years old but she looks much younger," said Bilqees, the wife of Abdul Sattar Edhi, founder of Pakistan's largest and best-known charity Edhi Foundation.
"As she was unable to fit into the various shelters, I brought her to the home run by the Edhi Foundation about two or three months ago," Bilqees said. Geeta, who is short, thin and dark complexioned, has been spending the past few weeks observing 'roza', the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, with the other girls and women living in the Edhi Foundation home.
She also prays frequently at a small mandir that Bilqees helped set up in a corner of the home. "She cries a lot whenever she worships, possibly because she remembers her parents and siblings," Bilqees said. Geeta has developed her own form of sign language and, during recent interactions with reporters in Karachi, she has indicated that she has 12 siblings in India, including seven brothers and five sisters.