LONDON: Police in Pakistan are widening the search for three people wanted in connection with the death of British schoolgirl Sara Sharif as they said the suspects are using news reports to elude them.
The 10-year-old was found dead at her home on Aug. 10 by police in the UK after receiving a phone call from her father Urfan Sharif, who left the country for Pakistan the day before.
Urfan, his partner Beinash Batool and his brother Faisal Malik are all thought to be hiding in Pakistan, having flown to Islamabad along with five more of Urfan’s children.
Police have focused their investigations on the city of Jhelum, where Urfan’s extended family lives, and said they are now expanding their search to two more local areas.
The Daily Telegraph reported that local police suggested the family were “one step ahead” of them as a result of extensive media coverage of the manhunt.
Malik Nisar, a police inspector at Domeli Police Station in Jhelum in charge of one of the search teams, said: “We are trying our best to arrest Urfan, Beinash and Faisal soon. They keep changing the locations.”
Sardar Nisar Ahmed Khan, spokesman of the Regional Police Office Rawalpindi, said: “The media is reporting minute by minute and I think they (the family) are changing the location through media reporting — and they are monitoring the news to avoid the arrest.
“Police initiated several raids but got no breakthrough yet. This case is a challenge for us and we want to unburden ourselves by arresting them soon.”
A number of Urfan’s relatives have also disappeared amid police raids looking for the missing trio across Jhelum.
Meanwhile, police in the UK have urged anyone with information to come forward ahead of an inquest into Sara’s death at Woking Coroner’s Court on Tuesday.
A post-mortem failed to establish the cause of death, but she was found to have sustained “multiple and extensive injuries” over “an extended period of time,” while police admitted that the girl and her family were known to both them and social services.
A mother whose child attended the same school as Sara reported that her daughter had seen the schoolgirl with multiple cuts and bruises on her body months before she was found dead, but when questioned, Sara had said they were caused by a bicycle accident. Other people who knew Sara told police she had been home-schooled since April.
