NEW DELHI, July 12: A young Indian singer offered help on Saturday to raise funds for a two-year-old Pakistani girl with a hole in her heart who arrived here for treatment on the first bus from Pakistan in 18 months.

Eleven-year-old Palak Muchhal along with Indian doctor Vinod Bhandari had asked baby Noor Fatima’s parents to bring her to their hometown Indore in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh for surgery.

“Palak and the hospital would bear all the expenses needed for plugging the hole in Fatima’s heart, as we have successfully done so in a number of cases earlier,” Bhandari told an India news agency.

They issued the appeal after reading about the baby in newspapers.

Muchhal said she was eagerly awaiting an acceptance of her offer to give her an opportunity to help mend the ties between the two South Asian arch rivals.

The young singer has helped 99 other children raise money for heart surgery.

Noor Fatima’s mother was taking her to India for treatment at a clinic in Bangalore.—AFP