Indian woman, Geeta takes blessing from Abdul Sattar Edhi, the chairman of Edhi Foundation in Karachi yesterday.

A mute and deaf Indian girl who has been stuck in Pakistan for more than a decade because she cannot remember where she came from may have finally identified her family, the charity looking after her said yesterday.
The new ray of hope for the woman known only as Geeta, believed to be in her early 20s, came after the Indian High Commission in Islamabad sent her a photograph of a family, whom she said she recognised.
The Edhi Foundation, Pakistan’s largest charity who has been caring for Geeta since she was found 13 years ago, said it was trying to arrange a Skype video call with the family, reported to be based somewhere in India’s Bihar province, to confirm their relationship.  
“The Indian high commissioner has lately sent a family photo to us and Geeta has recognised the family,” Anwer Kazmi, a senior official at the foundation, said.
“We hope she will confirm the family identification during the Skype chat through sign language,” Kazmi said.
Kazmi said Bilqees Edhi, wife of Edhi Foundation founder Abdul Satter Edhi, hoped to accompany Geeta along with several other members of the Edhi family to India before the end of October.
“We are expecting to get visas for all very soon and hope that on October 26 Geeta would fly back home,” he said
Geeta was 11 or 12 when she was found by police alone and disorientated with no identity papers on a train that had crossed the border from India into the eastern city of Lahore.  
She was believed to have strayed into Pakistani territory by mistake, but could not remember or explain exactly where she was from.  
Unable to identify her or her family, Pakistani police handed her over to the Edhi Foundation. She now lives in one of the foundation’s shelters in Karachi.  
Even the name “Geeta” was given to her by Edhi staff.
The Indian government confirmed Geeta would return and said DNA tests would be used to confirm her relation to the family.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted: “Geeta will be back in India soon. We have located her family. She will be handed over to them only after the DNA test.#”
Sushma Swaraj has written to the chief ministers of the states from where the families belonged to conduct an internal probe on them to see if their versions on Geeta’s disappearance matched with what was known of her.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said at a briefing that the procedure for bringing Geeta back is almost over and she will be back in India very soon.
 “If DNA testing verifies that they are indeed her parents, then she will be handed over to them,” Vikas Swarup, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, told a press conference in New Delhi.
“Our bringing her back does not depend on whether or not we discover her parents. She is a daughter of India... we will be bringing her back very, very shortly,” Swarup said, without specifying a date.
He also said that several families had approached the government claiming to be Geeta’s parents.
Swarup said that based on the investigations, three sets of photographs of probable families had been sent to Geeta, who stays at the Edhi Foundation in the port city of Karachi.
“Geeta identified one set of photo as possibly being those of her parents. But conclusive proof (of parentage) can be known through a DNA test,” he said.
He said Geeta, after arriving in India, can meet the family she has identified and once DNA tests are done, she will be handed over to the family.
In case, the DNA does not match, “we have identified two institutions - one in Delhi one in Indore meant for people with certain disabilities, and we believe Geeta will find a very good and welcoming home there,” he added.
In August the Indian government pledged to bring Geeta home, prompted by fresh media coverage of a smash hit Bollywood film.  
Bajrangi Bhaijaan, featuring Indian superstars Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor, tells the mirror image of Geeta’s story: a mute young Pakistani woman trapped in India.
The Edhi foundation has made repeated attempts to trace Geeta’s family, but with no success.