The five living children of a man who fled to Pakistan before British police found the battered body of his 10-year-old daughter weeks ago have been found in their grandfather’s home, according to Pakistani authorities.
The children, aged between one and 13 years, were found during a police raid in the small town of Jhelum on Monday. Their grandfather told Sky News he felt “protective” of the children who had been living with him since they were taken to Pakistan weeks ago.
An aunt of the children told BBC News that they were visibly upset when they were taken into custody on Monday. “The children were crying, the police dragged them away,” said Farzana Malik.
The discovery comes just over a month after the children’s father, Urfan Sharif, 41, made an emergency call to British emergency services from Pakistan. After flying out of the United Kingdom the day before, Sharif told police that they found his young daughter Sara Sharif dead in the family home in Surrey.
Police believe Sharif left the UK with Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 29, his brother Faisal Malik, 28, and their five children in tow. Authorities want to question the three adults who were still at large on Tuesday about Sara’s death. Sky News reported that at least four teams were combing Jhelum for the refugees.
Sara’s five siblings were taken into state custody by a judge on Tuesday and placed in a child care facility by the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau. According to the BBC, the judge’s ruling does not say how long the children should remain in the facility.
Muhammad Sharif, Urfan’s father, had asked the court to allow the children to stay in his house after they were found there. As he left the courtroom and found himself in what the BBC described as a chaotic scene outside, he made no comment on the decision.
Mohammed has repeatedly insisted that he does not know where his son is. He previously said he had seen Urfan after the family landed but had not had contact with him since. Last Friday he told the Guardian that Sara had “suffered an accidental death” and called on the trio to turn themselves in.
“The police are harassing my family, they have arrested my other sons and my son-in-law,” he added. “We are locked in our house and relatives have abandoned us.”
A Jhelum police spokesman confirmed earlier this month that at least 10 close relatives had been arrested but had not been arrested. According to The Guardian, police were criticized for holding several detainees, including Sharif’s two brothers, in secret locations to lure the escapees out.
In his conversations with the media in recent weeks, Mohammed never mentioned that he would protect his grandchildren. Asked about it by the BBC on Tuesday, the 68-year-old said: “Until today no one had asked me about the children. They kept asking me about Urfan, Faisal and Beinash, no one asked me about the children.”
British officials said they were cooperating with Pakistani authorities on the matter. Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council, told the BBC that their priority was to ensure the “immediate and longer-term safety and wellbeing of children”.
Meanwhile, Surrey Police are investigating Sara’s death as a murder. After her body was discovered in the family’s semi-detached home on August 10, a pathologist found she had suffered “multiple and extensive injuries” over a “prolonged and prolonged” period.
On August 23, a parent at the school Sara attended told the BBC that she had seen the girl with “clearly visible” facial injuries.
“Just before the Easter holidays she was at school and had cuts and bruises on her face and neck,” the woman said. “My daughter had asked what happened and she said she fell off her bike and then just walked away. The next day the teacher announced that she had left school and would be homeschooled. “She never saw Sara again.
A neighbor told the news service that Sara seemed like a “reserved and quiet” child. “She often carried the baby in her arms and sometimes I saw her playing with him,” said the neighbor. “I never saw her smile or laugh.”
Last week, Sharif and Batool released a video statement through their relatives breaking their silence on Sara’s death, which Batool described as an “incident.” She further read from a notebook that the couple had “gone into hiding” for fear that the Pakistani police would torture or kill them. She ended the video by saying that they were ready to work with the British authorities to fight her case.
Sharif, who was sitting next to her, said nothing.
According to The Sunday Times, Sara’s Polish mother Olga Sharif, née Domin, met Urfan in 2001 when they both worked at a Burger King. The couple married in 2009, had two children, including Sara, and separated in 2015.
In an interview with Polish television channel TVN, Olga said that it had become increasingly difficult to see her children, who were sent to live with their father by a family court in 2019.
Olga was also called in to identify Sara, who she said she barely recognized. “One of her cheeks was swollen and the other side was bruised,” she remembers. “Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see what my baby looked like.”