Nat Geo’s Mona Lisa in slammer, to be deported

A special anti-corruption court in Pakistan on Friday sent Sharbat Gula — Nat Geo famed ‘Afghan Girl’ — to 15 days imprisonment with a fine of `1,10, 000. She will also be deported to Afghanistan at the end of her sentence as per the court’s order.

Sharbat Gula had insisted that she never deceptively obtained a Pakistani Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC).

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) last month had arrested Ms Gula from Peshawar for forgery of a CNIC after the police registered a case against three persons of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for issuing a CNIC to Ms Gula on October 21, after which a search to find her was launched.

Four days after the registration of the case, the FIA officials held an operation in Noothia neighbourhood of Peshawar and arrested her.

The Nat Geo famed ‘Afghan girl’ was named in the case as one of the thousands of Afghan refugees who managed to dodge Pakistan’s computerised system to get an identity card last year.

The news appeared last year when Pakistani officials said that Ms Gula had applied for an identity card in April 2014, using the name Sharbat Bibi.

Well-known photographer Steve McCurry took questionably the most iconic picture of all times in December 1984 at a refugee camp situated on the edge of Peshawar.

The image stared from the magazine cover of National Geographic in June 1985 and remained a mystery for the following 17 years.

For many, her photo has been close to Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and so, National Geographic made a documentary on her life called the ‘Mona Lisa of Afghan war’.