Many refugees, and also a number of Pakistanis, are taken into custody for illegally acquiring Pakistan’s computerised national identity cards. But none attracted the kind of attention that the so-called ‘Afghan girl’ Sharbat Gula did when she was picked up by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Peshawar on October 26 for allegedly committing the same crime.

The reasons were obvious. The 44-year-old Afghan refugee woman had become famous years ago when the distinguished American photographer Steve McCurry clicked her picture at her school in the Nasir Bagh camp for Afghan refugees located on the outskirts of Peshawar. She was one of the many students at the school, but her piercing green eyes made her look different. The iconic picture of the 12-year-old girl was taken in 1984, but it appeared on the cover of the National Geographic Magazine in 1985. It is widely believed that her haunting eyes and her red shawl with holes in it intensely portrayed her poverty and the suffering of the Afghan people as a result of the civil war triggered by the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

As Sharbat Gula later recalled, she was angry when her teacher asked her to stay behind when the school closed for the day so that the late-arriving American photographer could take her picture. She reluctantly agreed, but her anger is reflected in her intense gaze, made sharper by her green eyes.

Sharbat Gula then faded from memory until 2002 when Steve McCurry returned to Peshawar with a crew of the National Geographic tv channel to locate Sharbat Gula. The idea was to find out if she was alive, and how she was coping with life. Until then she was nameless as the photographer was not able to get her name and had started calling her simply as the ‘Afghan girl’.

The search for Sharbat Gula began at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp, and was extended to the nearby Regi village and a few urban localities as Steve McCurry, the six-member tv crew and this writer met elders, commoners, shopkeepers and officials to seek clues about the now grown-up lady. A couple of Afghan refugee women claimed they were Sharbat Gula, but their accounts of the past did not match those of the green-eyed, 12-year-old photographed in 1984 at the school in the Nasir Bagh camp.

It was a stroke of good luck that an Afghan shoemaker who was at the school with Sharbat Gula, and knew her family, came forward after seeing her pictures that were distributed in large numbers at the Nasir Bagh camp. He was given funds to travel to her village near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan to locate her with the help of her brother, Kashar Khan, and bring her to Peshawar.

She was eventually found almost 18 years after her first picture was taken. But a bigger challenge was to persuade her to appear in the National Geographic tv channel’s documentary. Her husband Rahmat Gul, who was working as a baker at a tandoor in Peshawar, and was used to urban living, played a key role in persuading her to give an interview to the tv channel.

Sharbat Gula was shy and uncomfortable as she gave the interview to complete strangers. It was against her rural Afghan cultural norms where removing the veil is considered unthinkable. Yet she did this after making a proper agreement that guaranteed her regular payment of some money for her household needs, education of children and medical treatment and a trip to Saudi Arabia for eight members of her family for performing Haj.

The couple thought their sacrifice would change their life and ensure a better future for their children. It certainly brought some improvements in their life, but there were also unforeseen problems.

Her fame eventually landed her in trouble. Someone on her behalf allegedly bribed Pakistani officials to acquire the identity card so that she could continue living in Pakistan, and avoid being repatriated to an insecure Afghanistan. It was an act of desperation on her part as her husband and elder daughter had died, and she felt her life and those of her three daughters and seven years old son would be at risk if they returned to Afghanistan.

Her pictures, both as a 12-year old and then as 30-something, were available everywhere and her face was familiar. The fighters of the Islamic State, or Daesh, were in control of Kot district in Nangarhar province to which she belonged and returning to her village was not an option. A better option was to rent a house in Jalalabad. Her extended family had made this choice, and was preparing to repatriate to Afghanistan when the FIA suddenly decided to arrest her.

The FIA had lodged a case against her on October 20 for fraudulently obtaining the Pakistani computerised national identity card. Three former employees of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) were also charged for their involvement in the case for wrongfully issuing the CNICs not only to her, but also two adult Afghans, Wali Khan and Rauf Khan. They were wrongly listed as her sons and their whereabouts aren’t known.

Sharbat Gula was easily hunted down in Peshawar’s Nauthia locality, apprehended and charged on three counts. The offences were said to be bailable, but against all expectations a special anti-corruption court rejected her bail application on November 2.

Special Judge Farah Jamshed ruled that Sharbat Gula was not only staying illegally in Pakistan, but had also misused her long stay by acquiring the Pakistani identity card. She noted that the three legal counsels for Sharbat Gula confined their arguments to seeking bail on humanitarian grounds rather than legal, especially in the light of applicability of Section 14 of the Foreigners Act.

The case is complicated because three former Nadra officials, deputy assistant directors including Palwasha Afridi, Mohsin Ehsan and Ammad -- have also been charged for illegally processing the computerised national identity cards for Sharbat Gula and the two Afghan men. The government appears determined to get them convicted and punished and this process could also delay the verdict in Sharbat Gula’s case.

Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan at a press conference said Sharbat Gula’s bail application would be facilitated as the government prosecutors will not oppose it in the court because she was woman and had already suffered a lot.

However, contrary to his promise the prosecutors opposed her bail application. This disappointed the Afghan ambassador in Pakistan, Dr Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, who had formed a legal team to plead her case and was hoping she would be bailed out on November 2. He has now appealed to Islamabad to facilitate her release as this gesture of goodwill would have a positive impact about Pakistan in Afghanistan.

The Pak-Afghan relations were already strained and Sharbat Gula’s arrest has added fuel to fire as Afghans have taken to the social media in large numbers to denounce Pakistan in the strongest possible words.

The members of the Pakistani civil society and Pashtun nationalist political parties have also been campaigning for Sharbat Gula’s release. As many as 15 lawyers offered to fight her case and Steve McCurry said he wanted to secure her release and arrange for her immigration to the US.

The National Geographic issued a statement showing solidarity with Sharbat Gula and urging the Pakistan government to release her.

Sharbat Gula’s arrest has become big news in the world media and has caused an outpouring of sympathy for her. The FIA and the Pakistan government did not realise her arrest would provoke such a strong reaction.

In fact, the FIA officials were not even aware of Sharbat Gula’s background and her fame. They wanted to show their ‘performance’ by arresting her without realising it would elicit worldwide reaction and prompt the international media to portray Pakistan negatively.

There is no doubt Sharbat Gula violated Pakistani laws, but she deserved compassion due to her life-long suffering and leniency on account of her much-beloved and iconic image.