Deaf and dumb Geeta’s return from Pakistan was possible only with tireless efforts by former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. She is saddened after knowing demise of Swaraj, her saviour.
Swaraj passed away following cardiac arrest at AIIMS New Delhi on Tuesday night.
Sushma Swaraj had scores of success stories of bringing back stranded citizen from foreign land, also had the credit of bringing back Geeta, a deaf and mute Indian girl who had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan and spent ten years there.
It was special efforts from Swaraj who had ensured that Geeta returns to India in 2015. Since then the deaf and dumb girl has been kept at an Indore-based volunteer organisation meant for especially-abled girls. Upon her return, Swaraj had called Geeta ‘India’s daughter’.
Geeta was not informed about Swaraj’s death last night and only was told about the unfortunate departure of her ‘guardian’ on Wednesday morning which left her shattered.
An otherwise turned gloomy and quiet ever since the news broke on her.
Using her sign language Geeta claimed, “My mother has gone and now I am orphaned, who will take care of me now,”
My mother used to meet me whenever she came to Indore and used to call me on phone, claimed the girl. I did not get the chance to talk to her for one month as she was ill, she added. Holding Swaraj’s picture in her hand, Geeta was watching the updates on ‘her mother’ on TV since she was told about her demise, organisation’s volunteer said.
Swaraj besides taking regular updates about Geeta had entrusted her responsibility on union minister Thavar Chand Gehlot, who also hails from the region. Through Gehlot, Swaraj had also provided a laptop to Geeta on her insistence.
Sandip Pandit, a volunteer of the shelter home where Geeta lives said that Geeta had contacted Swaraj in July but her personal assistant had told her that the former union minister was not keeping well and could not talk.
In the past Swaraj had also issued instructions for finding a suitable match for Geeta and several boys were introduced to the girl who had rejected all of them. A hectic search for parents of Geeta who was brought to India in 2015 has not seen any success in all these years.