During multiple raids on Rasikh Munir's property, officers failed to find the family. But he was the one who hid them.
A man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle waves us down an alley. We’re in a small village in eastern Pakistan, to meet someone who says he can tell us how Sara Sharif’s family managed to hide from police for more than four weeks during an international police hunt.For nearly a month, police searched for the family of eight - Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, her stepmother Beinash Batool and uncle Faisal Malik, along with five of her siblings.
The children were later found at another relative's home. Mr Munir told us that was the moment Sharif, Batool and Malik decided to fly back to England, where they were finally arrested on 13 September 2023.We met Rasikh Munir before Sara’s father, uncle and stepmother were put on trial for her murder in London, before the jury heard horrific details of the injuries that Sara had sustained - bite marks, iron burns and injuries caused by hot liquid.
There is barbed wire above the gate to his house and a security camera is trained on us. He welcomes us in, wearing a tracksuit and sliders. He takes me through to a second bedroom, hung with dark red curtains and a double bed squeezed beside a wooden wardrobe. This, he says, is where Batool and the children used to sleep - some on the bed, some on mattresses on the floor.
Mr Munir says the younger children were scared when they hid from police in fields of corn near his house During the international police hunt, he says the family stayed with him for several weeks, but they weren’t in permanent hiding. He says police only had permission to go into the grandfather’s house, so couldn’t check other nearby properties.
We attended the hearing. The eldest of the five children carried the youngest through a crowd of police officers and local journalists, trying to protect their faces from camera flashes.Mr Munir says the loss of the children and the growing police pressure prompted the adults to return to the UK. He said Sharif, Batool and Malik then contacted a UK lawyer and Surrey Police to say they’d be back within days.
He has remained consistent and detailed in his story. He didn’t come to us. After several months of searching, we found him. We also know the police raided his property and were suspicious of his involvement from early on."One should tell what has happened," he says. "The person who hides reality is not a good person."
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