Mumbai: Bilquis Bano, the Pakistani caretaker of Geeta, the girl who was repatriated to India, was on Sunday awarded the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award 2015 for social justice.
The Harmony Foundation Board unanimously decided to honour Karachi-based Bilquis Bano of Edhi Foundation. Geeta, who came back to the country recently, had strayed across the border aboard the Samjhauta Express in 2003 and had ended up in Lahore where the Pakistan Rangers found her.
“There are a few politicians and a few anti-social elements in India and Pakistan who are not allowing both the countries to come together,” Bilquis Bano said while speaking to the Deccan Chronicle.
“I was asked by our late Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, to join politics and do the noble cause of bringing people together, but politics is evil and I told her that in Pakistan if one needs to do noble work politics is not the correct path. Achche kaam karne waalo ko Pakistan mein saza-e-maut milti hai (People in Pakistan who do noble work get the death sentence),” she said.
The Mother Teresa Memorial International Award 2015 is in view of the noble and humanitarian act of sheltering Geeta while she was in Pakistan.
Bano added, “Geeta is 22 years old now. She was an 11-year-old child when she was brought to me. It is not only Geeta, we have around four to five thousand children who are displaced in our 350 centres around Pakistan. Geeta did not speak or listen to anything, but she only responded to temple bells, and that is when I came to know that she could be from our neighbouring country, India. Today when I receive this award I am full of energy and I feel like a 20-year-old youth who wants to keep the work of bringing people together going. I would like to say that we love peace and humanity and we have a special place in our hearts for our brothers and sisters in India.”
This prestigious award has in the past been given to the Dalai Lama and Malala Yusufzai by the Harmony Foundation.
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