Bilquis Edhi honored with Mother Teresa Award in India

Geeta (left) with Bilquis Edhi (Source: Reuters)

Bilquis Edhi, the wife of prominent Pakistani philanthropist, social activist and humanitarian, Abdul Sattar Edhi of Edhi Foundation, has been selected for Mother Teresa Memorial International Award 2015 for sheltering Geeta, a deaf and mute Indian girl who was stranded in Pakistan.

“In view of the noble and humanitarian act of sheltering our dear Geeta, a deaf-and-mute woman who had accidentally crossed into Pakistan, the Harmony Foundation Board has unanimously decided to honor Karachi-based Bilquis Bano of the Edhi Foundation,” the foundation’s chairman and activist Abraham Mathai said.

Bilquis Edhi has been honored along with global humanitarian aid provider Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian aid organization. The prestigious award, which has earlier been presented to two Nobel laureates, Dalai Lama and Malala Yousufzai, is instituted by the Harmony Foundation, Mumbai.

The Edhi foundation had looked after Geeta for over a decade after she was spotted by the Pakistan Rangers in Lahore after she strayed across the border abroad the Samjhauta Express train that connects the two nations in 2003.

“It is indeed remarkable to note Bano’s emphatic gesture of considering her religious beliefs and cultural sentiments through the years, despite Geeta’s disadvantaged situation to demand the same,” Mathai explained.

Bilquis Edhi and MSF’s representative Leslie Shanks have accepted the Harmony Foundation’s invite to come to India in person and receive the award instituted in memory of the late Mother Teresa at an event scheduled on November 22.

Geeta was 11 or 12 when she crossed one of the world’s most militarized borders from neighboring India. She was stuck in Pakistan as she was unable to identify herself or say where she came from, eventually remaining under the care of Bilquis Edhi, who named her ‘Geeta’.

Her case gained international attention after the release of Bollywood film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which deals with a similar story of a Pakistani mute boy stranded in India and how a generous man goes on a journey across the border to reunite him with his family. Now in her early 20s, Geeta lived in a shelter in the port city of Karachi, operated by Pakistan’s largest welfare organization, the Edhi Foundation, until her return to India in October.