LAHORE: Jhelum police on Monday claimed to have recovered five children of Urfan Sharif, the father of 10-year-old Sara Sharif who was found dead in their family home in Woking, Surrey, last month.

Mr Urfan and his wife, Beinash Batool — Sara’s stepmother — had left the UK for Pakistan along with one other adult and five children on Aug 9, a day before the girl’s body was discovered by the police.

Since then, police in Pakistan have been looking for the couple, who have been on the run. According to Rawalpindi Regional Police Officer (RPO) Syed Khurram Ali, a raid was carried out at the home of Muhammad Sharif — Urfan’s father — after they received information that the couple were present in the house.

The police found five children, aged between one and 13 years, locked in various rooms of the house in Jhelum. They were later taken to the District Police Officer’s (DPO) office.

RPO says children found during raid for husband, wife in hiding; family claims kids ‘taken away’ forcefully

RPO Ali told Dawn that Mr Sharif had earlier denied any knowledge about the whereabouts of his son, daughter-in-law and their children.

According to the RPO, the children were recovered around 6pm and police had contacted their grandfather to take them away, but he did not show up until 9pm.

The police would hand over the children to the Child Protection Welfare Bureau (CPWB) if Mr Sharif did not come to take them, he said.

‘Taken away forcefully’

Muhammad Sharif also confirmed that the children were taken away by police.

Talking to BBCNews, Mr Sharif said he had been hiding the children in his home since their arrival on Aug 10.

“I told Urfan and Beinash that they can go wherever they want to, but I will not let the children go with you. Until today, no one had asked me about the children.”

Mr Urfan had two children — Sara and a son — from her first wife Olga Sharif, and three with Ms Batool.

His sister told the BBC that the children were very upset and didn’t want to go with the police. “The children were crying, the police were dragging them away,” Farzana Malik said.

“They were crying a lot and saying, ‘We don’t want to go, we don’t want to go.’”

Earlier on Saturday, the police interrogated 10 to 15 relatives of Urfan Sharif.

The relatives were called in for interrogation and to seek information about the absconding couple’s whereabouts. They were not arrested and allowed to go after questioning, police said.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2023