Pakistan on Monday announced it would free that Sharbat Bibi, an Afghan woman who became famous after she was featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine as a child, on bail, BBC reported. Bibi was arrested on October 26. Officials said she was arrested for possessing a fraudulent Computerised National Identity Card and being in possession of both Pakistani and Afghan identity cards.

Pakistan's interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said, "I think I will have to review this case because she is a woman and we should see it from a humanitarian angle." Khan also said that the administration wanted to penalise officials who had issued the fake documents. He said, "If we withdraw charges against her, deport her, or give her a temporary visa to leave Pakistan, then we will have to take back cases against the officials. They are the real culprits."

Pakistan had recently launched a drive against people with fraudulent identity cards. The country currently provides refuge to an estimated three million Afghan refugees, most of whom are unregistered, according to Dawn.

Bibi's photograph, captured by Steve McCurry at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Peshawar in 1984, won international acclaim and was compared to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting. McCurry found her again in 2002. Her image had quickly become symbolic of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Responding to reports about Bibi's arrest, McCurry on Instagram had said, "I am committed to doing anything and everything possible to provide legal and financial support for her and her family."