Green-eyed ‘Afghan girl’ arrested

Police in Pakistan have arrested the green-eyed Afghan refugee girl, whose photograph appeared on a National Geographic magazine cover, for having a fake Pakistani identity card, an investigator said.

Sharbat Gulla was arrested during a raid at a home in Peshawar, said Shahid Ilyas, from the Federal Investigation Agency.

Gulla was an Afghan refugee 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 had a fake Pakistani ID card.

Mr Ilyas said some officials were later fired for providing Gulla with the fake ID and that she has since been living in hiding to avoid arrest. – (AP)