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Pakistan arrests National Geographic’s famed ‘Afghan girl’
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Original Publication Date: October 26, 2016 2:15AM
Publication Updated: April 27, 2025 9:47AM
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Pakistani investigator says the police have arrested National Geographic’s famed green-eyed ‘Afghan Girl’ for having a fake Pakistani identity card.
Shahid Ilyas from the Federal Investigation Agency, says the police arrested Sharbat Gulla during a raid on Wednesday at a home in Peshawar.
Gulla was an Afghan refugee girl when she gained international fame in 1984 after war photographer Steve McCurry’s photograph of her, with piercing green eyes, was published on the cover of National Geographic. McCurry found her again in 2002, in Afghanistan.
Gulla surfaced again in Pakistan last year when authorities said she has a fake Pakistani ID card.
Ilyas says some officials were later fired for providing Gulla with the fake ID and that she has since been living in hiding to avoid arrest.
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