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Geeta's Return Brings Back Hope For Pakistani Boy Stuck In India

Geeta's Return Brings Back Hope For Pakistani Boy Stuck In India
BHOPAL, INDIA - SEPTEMBER 7: Pakistani boy Mohammad Ramzan playing chess with inmates of shelter home run by NGO Ummeed on September 7, 2015 in Bhopal, India. Mohd Ramzan, 15, was separated from his mother at an early age of 10 when his father Mohammad Kazol took him to Bangladesh and remarried. Tortured by his step-mother, whom his father supported, Ramzan crossed borders to India, passed through Ranchi, Mumbai, New Delhi and landed in Bhopal. HT found him at Ummeed, a shelter home where he said that he wished to return to Pakistan. (Photo by Mujeeb Faruqui/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
BHOPAL, INDIA - SEPTEMBER 7: Pakistani boy Mohammad Ramzan playing chess with inmates of shelter home run by NGO Ummeed on September 7, 2015 in Bhopal, India. Mohd Ramzan, 15, was separated from his mother at an early age of 10 when his father Mohammad Kazol took him to Bangladesh and remarried. Tortured by his step-mother, whom his father supported, Ramzan crossed borders to India, passed through Ranchi, Mumbai, New Delhi and landed in Bhopal. HT found him at Ummeed, a shelter home where he said that he wished to return to Pakistan. (Photo by Mujeeb Faruqui/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

So, about 30 months back, Ramzan sneaked into India after someone advised him to do so, 20-year-old Basit, who is pursuing a chartered accountancy course here, said.

The run-away boy landed in Ranchi and after wandering in Mumbai, and New Delhi reached Bhopal station where the police caught him and handed him over to Umeed, he said.

"After I came to know about Ramzan last month, I met him and narrated his ordeal with the help of social media," he said. "What couldn't be done in two years, was done in just 11 days with the help of social networking site Facebook, microblogging site Twitter and WhatsApp," he said.

Activists in Karachi, Pakistan also helped Basit in his mission, by displaying Ramzan's photos on the walls of Moosa colony after his appeal went viral. One day, the boy's step-father in Pakistan saw the poster and passed on the information to his wife- the boy's mother, Basit said.

A delighted Razia contacted her son from Pakistan over phone in Bhopal on September 18 with the help of a person in whose house she worked, he added.

Pakistani boy Mohammad Ramzan with inmates of shelter home Ummeed.

Ramzan said, "I couldn't believe my ears when my mother talked to me after five years. I also spoke to my sister Zora and my friends in Moosa Colony.

"Since then, I am talking to my mother frequently," he added.

Ramzan's story is similar to Geeta, who was reportedly just 7 or 8 years old when she was found sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express by the Pakistan Rangers 15 years ago at the Lahore railway station.

She was adopted by the Edhi Foundation's Bilquis Edhi and lived with her in Karachi. She returned to India on October 26 but was unable to recognise her family.

Right now, Geeta is staying in an institute for speech and hearing impaired people in Madhya Pradesh's Indore district.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.