Geeta

NEW DELHI — Twelve years ago, a deaf and mute 11-year-old girl crossed the Indian border into Pakistan. Today, finally, she flew home to a warm and emotional welcome.

Wearing a red tunic, her head loosely covered with a matching scarf, the girl — now a 23-year-old woman who had been given the name Geeta — waved to the scores of people who had gathered at the New Delhi airport to greet her.

It was a rare happy moment between hostile neighbors whose officials are often indifferent to the lives of innocent civilians.

“I am very happy. In Pakistan, I used to often feel sad,” she told reporters through a sign language interpreter.

More than a decade ago, Geeta was found by Pakistan border troops, alone and weeping, near the border. Accounts of how she arrived differ, with some saying she had accidentally crossed an unmarked section of the border and others saying she’d been a passenger on a cross-border train.

Since she could not explain where she had come from, she was presumed to be Pakistani. The army handed the girl to a well-known Pakistani charity that ran a number of homes for orphans. The Edhi Foundation named her Geeta, but not knowing about her family, years passed without much effort to locate them.

Earlier in 2015, Indian and Pakistani officials realized that Geeta was Indian, though details about how they made that discovery have not been announced.

Her plight was highlighted by the media in India and Pakistan after the July release of a Bollywood film, “Bajrangi Bhaijan.” In the film, Salman Khan, one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, overcomes all odds to reunite a mute girl with her family in Pakistan after she was separated from them during a trip to India.

The similarities between the film and Geeta’s story helped accelerate action. In August, India declared that Geeta was an Indian citizen and efforts to trace her family were renewed.

In New Delhi, Geeta and her family will undergo DNA tests to ensure she was reunited with her own parents, an Indian official said.