Pakistani authorities on Wednesday arrested the green-eyed Afghan woman who became a symbol of her country’s wars 30 years ago when her photo as a girl appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine, her family said.
Sharbat Gula, who grew up in a refugee camp and is now in her 40s, is accused of having a forged Pakistani identity card.
Gula is being held in jail in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, said her brother-in-law Shahshad Khan, who added that Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided her home early on Wednesday morning.
“FIA along with security forces came, entered her house, searched all belongings and took important papers including $2,800,” Khan said.
Officials with the FIA and Pakistan’s national identity authority were not available for comment.
She faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of fraud.
Gula was for years an unnamed celebrity after an image of her a teenage Afghan refugee was featured on National Geographic magazine’s cover in 1985, her striking green eyes peering out from a headscarf with a mixture of ferocity and pain.
