‘Murdered’ Sara Sharif’s fugitive father ‘willing to surrender soon’, claims girl’s grandfather – as her grieving mother faces ‘anxious’ wait for her ex to ‘give up’ and hand himself in to police
- Sara Sharif’s body was found at home on August 10 after her father fled the UK
The grandfather of a ten-year-old girl who was found dead at her home has claimed that the child’s fugitive father is on the verge of handing himself in to police in Pakistan.
An international manhunt was launched after police discovered Sara Sharif’s body with a catalogue of injuries at the £500,000 council house in Woking, Surrey, following a phone call made by her father Urfan Sharif, 41, on August 10.
Mr Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool, 29, and his brother Faisal Malik, 28, fled the UK to Islamabad a day before her body was tragically found. Sara’s ‘anxious’ mother has urged her ex-husband to ‘give up’ and hand himself in to police.
Speaking to The Mirror from the family home in Jehlum, which is 85 miles from Islamabad, Sara’s grandfather Muhammad Sharif said: ‘As far as I know, my son and his wife are willing to surrender and they will do so soon.’
The 68-year-old claimed he had not seen his son since he fled to Pakistan and has no idea how Sara died. He added: ‘I want them to surrender soon as because of the police raids and investigations all of my family is in deep trouble.
Urfan Sharif (pictured) is on the verge of handing himself in, according to Sara Sharif’s grandfather
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif was tragically found dead at her home in Woking earlier this month. Here, she is pictured with her mother Olga
Urfan Sharif, 41, his wife Beinash Batool (pictured left), 29, and his brother Faisal Malik (pictured right), 28, fled the UK a day before Sara’s body was found
‘I don’t know where they are but I can tell that they are not in Jehlum.’
Sara’s mother Olga Sharif has also spoken as Pakistani police close in on the three fugitives.
She told The Sun: ‘Until he is arrested I can’t have any sense of closure or security. It’s been a very anxious wait.’
READ MORE HERE: ‘Murdered’ Sara Sharif, 10, ‘was pulled out of school by her father and his partner who said she was being bullied for wearing a hijab’- as manhunt for on-the-run couple continues
It comes after police chief Nasir Bajwa revealed they were closing in on the group. He said on Saturday: ‘With God’s will we will make the arrest by tomorrow night.’
Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Pakistani police are tracking a mobile phone SIM card belonging to Urfan Sharif. The SIM has recently been used by someone in the sprawling city of Jhelum.
Khurram Ali, a senior police official in Rawalpindi, who is leading the country-wide manhunt for the three, said: ‘We have traced a mobile phone SIM card which is registered under the name of Urfan Sharif and is being actively used by someone in Jhelum.’
Taxi-driver Sharif and Batool, as well as Malik – who was living in the UK on a student visa – bought one-way tickets to Pakistan worth £5,000 before fleeing.
Accompanying them were five children, aged between a year and 13.
Surrey Police said Sharif called them by calling 999 from Pakistan, which led detectives to make the grim discovery at the family council house in the early hours of August 10.
Since they fled the country, police searches for the three have focused on Jhelum, in the Punjab region, as Sharif’s wider family live in the city.
Surrey Police said that a post-mortem examination on Sara’s body could not establish the cause of death
Police forensic officers working at the house in Hammond road, Horsell, Woking, where Sara’s dead body was found
The trio secretly visited one of Sharif’s brothers, Imran, on August 10, the very day police discovered Sara’s body back in Surrey.
Imran Sharif – a shopkeeper in the city who has since been questioned by police – said that his two brothers and sister-in-law told him they returned to attend the funeral of one of her relatives in Mirpur in the Kashmir area, and left shortly afterwards.
Police believe Sharif, Batool and Malik may be hiding in Jhelum, possibly being aided by their relatives.
Surrey Police said that a post-mortem examination on Sara’s body could not establish the cause of death.
But it revealed the little girl had suffered ‘multiple and extensive injuries’ which were ‘likely to have been caused over a sustained and extended period of time’.
As a result, the police have widened their investigation and are now appealing to the public to piece together her life in the months and days leading up to her death.
Imran Sharif told police his niece fell down the stairs during an ‘accident’ and died. Sara’s mother rubbished his ‘baseless version’ of events as she said: ‘If there was an accident you don’t leave the country in secret.’
‘He could have just made that claim to protect his brother and try to stop questions being asked. I don’t think he is being honest,’ she told The Sun, as she claimed Urfan could have ‘lied’ to his sibling about what happened.
Flowers and tributes are laid outside the home of Sara Sharif following her death
‘The only person I want answers from is Urfan. He has to be questioned about what’s happened to my daughter,’ she added.
Last week, the mother of a girl who was at school with Sara in nearby Byfleet, revealed that Sara stopped going to school a day after she was seen with cuts and bruises on her face.
The mother, only identified as Jessica, told the BBC her daughter saw Sara at St Mary’s Primary School about four months ago with injuries on her face and neck.
Jessica said: ‘My daughter had asked what had happened, and she said she’d fallen off a bike and then kind of walked away.
‘The next day the teacher announced she had left school and she was being home-schooled.’
It was also reported last week that Sara was taken out of school by her parents after she was bullied by other pupils for wearing the hijab, the Islamic head dress.
Relatives of Sharif revealed that he has married three times, first to a cousin in Pakistan.
But after he arrived in the UK on a student visa around 15 years ago, he divorced his first wife, and married Sara’s mother, Polish national Olga Domin, 36, with whom he also had an elder son, aged 13.
After divorcing Olga, he then married Beinash, who was born in Luton. They have had three children together.
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