Iconic 'Afghan girl' Sharbat Gula to travel to India for treatment

The green-eyed iconic Afghan girl Sharbat Gula, the face of the war-torn country for many years since her cover photo appeared on the National Geographic cover, will soon travel to India for medical treatment. She was recently detained and expelled from Pakistan for possessing fake identity documents. Shaida Abdali, Afghanistan's Ambassador to India announced on Twitter: "The Iconic Afghan Sharbat Gula will soon be in India for medical treatment free of cost."

Gula, now in her 40s, is suffering from Hepatitis C. Sources in the Afghanistan Embassy here said that she will travel to Bengaluru to receive free-of-cost treatment in the Narayana Hospital. As an Afghan refugee residing in Pakistan and affected by war, she gained global recognition when her photograph was featured on National Geographic in 1985 and was linked with Leonardo Da Vinci's magnum opus, Mona Lisa. Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), on October 26, arrested her from her house in Peshawar's Nauthia area for alleged forgery of a Pakistani Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC). A day after her arrest, the United Nations High Commission distanced itself from Sharbat Gula, claiming that she was not a registered refugee.

Sharbat Gula's photo by Steve McCurry that made the cover of National Geographic

She pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined Rs 1,10,000 by a special anti-corruption and immigration court. Following the sentence, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government offered to stop her deportation from the country but she refused to stay in Pakistan. She was personally welcomed by the Afghan president last week upon her arrival in Afghanistan, and offered her a furnished apartment.

Her striking green eyes, mixed with ferocity, peering out from a headscarf symbolised the pain and sufferings of Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation. But she remained anonymous for years, till National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry rediscovered her in 2001. National Geographic made a short documentary about her life and dubbed her the 'Mona Lisa of Afghan war.'