INDIA GRATEFUL TO PAKISTAN FOR RETURN OF GEETA, LOST FOR YEARS

[Little is known about the precise circumstances of Geeta’s sojourn into Pakistan. One account in Indian news reports asserts that Pakistani officials found Geeta aboard a train at a railway station in the city of Lahore in 2003. She was taken to Karachi and placed in the care of the Edhi Foundation, a prominent social welfare provider that runs a home for the hearing-impaired.]

By Hari Kumar

NEW DELHI — She was a deaf and mute Indian who had strayed over the border into Pakistan as a young girl more than a decade ago. On Monday, she was welcomed back to India, the outcome of a rare cooperation between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Now in her 20s, the woman, Geeta, flew from Karachi, Pakistan, to New Delhi, and was greeted by Sushma Swaraj, India’s foreign minister, in a highly publicized homecoming event.

“I welcome a daughter of India on Indian land,” said Ms. Swaraj, seated beside Geeta, who responded through an interpreter that she was “very happy” to be in India.

Little is known about the precise circumstances of Geeta’s sojourn into Pakistan. One account in Indian news reports asserts that Pakistani officials found Geeta aboard a train at a railway station in the city of Lahore in 2003. She was taken to Karachi and placed in the care of the Edhi Foundation, a prominent social welfare provider that runs a home for the hearing-impaired.

“She was communicating only through sign language,” Faisal Edhi, the son of the foundation’s founder, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Edhi said that he had believed that Geeta was Indian and Hindu because she pressed her hands together in a namaste greeting typical to India, touched the feet of her elders, and asked for a bell often used for Hindu prayers.

The Edhi family was unable to locate Geeta’s parents for years, Mr. Edhi said, but her story gained prominence after the July release of a Bollywood film that appeared to resemble her experiences, in reverse. In the film, “Bajrangi Bhaijan,” the actor Salman Khan plays a crusading Indian who strives to reunite a Pakistani girl with her mother after the girl is stranded in India.

In August, the Indian ambassador to Pakistan met Geeta and “established her nationality,” said Ms. Swaraj, though she did not specify how.

Later, Indians who asserted family ties to Geeta sent the government their photographs to pass along to her. She thought she recognized her parents in one, and asked for photos of their children, her presumed siblings. This month, she received those photos and identified the family as her own.

The first images of Geeta in India were at the New Delhi airport on Monday morning, where she waved to cameras, dressed in a bright red and white outfit, her hair loosely covered with a scarf, holding a bouquet. But when she met members of the family she had identified, she did not appear to recognize them.

“Whether she finds her parents or not, Geeta is our daughter,” Ms. Swaraj said. “To come to India is her right.”

Ms. Swaraj said that DNA tests would establish whether the family was Geeta’s, and that in the meantime she would be sent to a home for the hearing- and speech-impaired run by a charity in the city of Indore.

Geeta’s return became an opportunity for the Indian government to publicly thank Pakistan for its cooperation after a series of tensions, including disruptions of two recent events in Mumbai held by a Pakistani singer and a former Pakistani foreign minister by Hindu hard-line activists. In August, talks between the two countries unraveled after officials from each side publicly traded barbs about Pakistan’s decision to meet with Kashmiri separatist leaders in India.

On Monday, Pakistani officials called the Indian deputy high commissioner to register their protest for what they described as cease-fire violations by Indian soldiers who they said had fired shots over the border.

But in India, the main theme, for the moment, appeared to be more about gratitude over Geeta’s case. Ms. Swaraj made no mention of the tensions with Pakistan.

“I thank the government of Pakistan from my heart,” she said. “The moment we told them she is the daughter of India, her nationality is established and we want to bring her to India — without any ifs and buts, without any hurdle, they got her documents prepared. And because of that Geeta is here.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Geeta on Monday evening, and pledged 10 million rupees, or more than $150,000, to the Edhi Foundation, calling the Edhi family “apostles of kindness and compassion” on Twitter.

Manzoor Ali Memon, a spokesman for the Pakistan High Commission, told Indian reporters at the airport that Pakistan wanted to secure good treatment for 459 Pakistanis he said were imprisoned in India. Ms. Swaraj said that India and Pakistan were discussing an exchange of what she described as mentally unstable prisoners, though she declined to discuss any other diplomatic issues.

@ The New York Times