PESHAWAR, Oct 26: The green-eyed ‘Afghan girl’ who shot to global fame when a 1985 issue of National Geographic magazine published a haunting picture of her on its cover, was arrested in Peshawar on Tuesday.
Sharbat Gula, now in her 40s, was being investigated for the past few years by the Pakistani authorities who had discovered she was living in the country with fraudulent identity documents.
Gula was arrested from her home for forgery of a Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC), the FIA sources said. Bibi had Pakistani and Afghan ID cards in her possession, and both ID cards have been recovered from her, the FIA sources said.
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Gula has been charged under Section 419, 420 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 5(2) of Prohibition of Corruption Act.
An FIA official said the officer who issued the ID cards to Sharbat Bibi is now working as a deputy commissioner in customs and got bail-before-arrest to avoid arrest in the case.
Sharbat Gula, now in her 40s, was being investigated for the past few years by the Pakistani authorities who had discovered she was living in the country with fraudulent identity documents.
Her portrait ‘Afghan Girl’ appeared on the June 1985 cover of the National Geographic magazine and is recognised as ‘its most recognised cover’. Her intense stare at the camera and expressionless face likened her to the famous ‘Mona Lisa’ painting. Sharbat who was pictured outside a refugee camp became a symbol of the human cost of the Soviet War.
Steve McCurry her photographer in the 1990s began a search for her. After several unsuccessful attempts he found her in Afghanistan and confirmed her identity using iris recognition. She had never seen her picture; she first saw it in 2002.
