New twist in Bollywood-style saga as Indian woman denies ‘long-lost family’ are hers
IT HAD all the hallmarks of a Bollywood film plot. A young Indian woman, apparently stranded in Pakistan for 13 years after wandering across one of the world’s most fortified borders, headed home to meet her long-lost family.
But the already strange saga took an unexpected twist yesterday as she was flown back to India from Pakistan, only to insist the family she had identified in a photograph was not hers after all.
The twists and turns of the remarkable story have been challenging to tie down as the woman, known as Geeta, has severe speaking and hearing diffi- culties and struggles to communicate.
But it has been a “feel-good” affair that has captivated people in both countries, even as relations between the two nuclear rivals remain tense.
“Geeta. Welcome home our daughter,” said Sushma Swaraj, the Indian foreign minister, as the young woman arrived back in New Delhi. But she later revealed that Geeta “is refusing to recognise” the family that met her at the airport. DNA testing will now be used to try to check her bloodline as two other families have also emerged to claim her as their child.
In a case of life apparently imitating art, her story echoed the plot of
Bajrangi Bhaijaan, a film released this year in which an Indian man finds a mute Pakistani girl and tries to reunite her with her family. Publicity surrounding the film brought attention to the fate of Geeta, who is believed to have been about 11 when she somehow wandered from India into Pakistan.