We are led down an corner by an AK-47 abuse rifleman. We are meeting with a man who claims he can explain how Sara Sharif’s home hid from the authorities for more than four weeks during an international officers search in a small village in eastern Pakistan.
He was the one who hid them, he tells us.
For almost a month, authorities searched for the home of eight- Sara’s parents Urfan Sharif, her mother Beinash Batool and brother Ali Malik, along with five of her siblings.
They had flown to Pakistan on 9 August 2023- a moment before 10-year-old Sara’s damaged and dead body was found in a room at their house in Woking, Surrey.
Authorities started a higher profile search for the community across Pakistan by deploying many groups after receiving a notice from Interpol to find Sharif, Batool, and Malik.
They suspected Rasikh Munir, a comparative of Urfan Sharif’s, of helping them. But during many assaults on his house, they failed to find the family.
The kids were afterwards found at another friend’s house. According to Mr. Munir, that is when Sharif, Batool, and Malik made the decision to return to England, where they were suddenly detained on September 13, 2023.
Since the initial reports of Sara’s death in Pakistan were initially reported, the BBC has followed the story.
Before the jury heard horrifying details of the accidents Sara had sustained, including bite marks, metal burns, and injuries brought on by hot water, we met Rasikh Munir before Sara’s father, brother, and mother were put on trial for her death in London.
He claimed that he had faith in Sharif and that he had taken the community to guard the kids. He also revealed amazing details, such as how the community had been hidden in maize fields by police during the night and how he had driven them around the neighborhood, making purchases from ice cream shops, and even going to hairdressers while cops searched for them.
And surprisingly, he claimed Sharif, Batool, and Malik had been hiding out in a nearby home just a few meters away from us when we spoke with Sara’s grandfather shortly after her sisters had been taken away by the police.
Sharif and Batool have been found guilty of murder by a judge at London’s Old Bailey. Although Malik was found guilty of causing or allowing her dying, she was cleared of death.
Olga DominWe arrive at Rasikh Munir, a rural business district in Punjab, surrounded by wheat fields and corn fields.
Barbed wire is positioned above the front door to his home, and we are monitored by a security cameras. He welcomes us in, wearing a sweatshirt and slides.
Before we met, Mr Munir told me he’d done nothing wrong in hiding the home. When he hid them, there was no demand from Interpol for their arrest, but he was aware that policeman wanted to speak with the household about Sara’s death.
When we come face-to-face, I wonder if he’ll become cautious about his presence, but within hours of entering the house, his journey begins.
He claims that this was Urfan’s room, showing me a dark room with sealed windows and a white bed body and a yellow plate. ” They]Sharif and Malik ] used to sleep here, they used this table for food”.
He points to a blue seat and a dark plastic board. They used to stay with Beinash to get in touch with the attorney and talk about how to approach the officers in the UK.
A double bed stifled by a wooden wardrobe and dark red curtain that he hangs in a second bedroom leads me there. This, he says, is where Batool and the kids used to rest- some on the pillow, some on mattresses on the floor.
As we talk, I notice the design of a firearm tucked in his belt. When we ask about the arms, we are told they are for safety from thieves.
We climb up onto an empty, level roof, strung with an empty washing line. Mr. Munir says as he crosses the empty fields,” From this roof, you could see the officers from all four factors.”
The watch is almost entirely clear to the main road, with the exception of a dozen one-storey houses and a sprinkling of branches.
Authorities visited the home several times at night. The adults and all five children were hidden in the dark, in warm, humid conditions, according to Mr. Munir, who was telling us the community had hid from the police in a large field of corn a dozen meters away from the house.
This region has never been searched by police. The children had just one bag, they didn’t include some clothes with them. Most of their products was in my car, which I used to garden in a secure place”, he says.
” The younger people didn’t know what was happening”, he says. ” They were scared, they don’t know”.
Not the first time the family has visited the home was this. Next day, Sara had been there also. ” She was a pretty good girl”, Mr Munir remembers.
During the global policeman hunt, he says the household stayed with him for many weeks, but they weren’t in continuous hiding.
He claims to have driven them from Sialkot to Jhelum, where Sara’s father resided, on foot. He took them for ice cream and pie, as well as haircuts in town.
He claims that the home was uninjured when the police kill became more extensive.
But then the web began to stretch.
Simply over three days into the search, police found Sara’s sisters at their father’s home. Days after the attack, he received a BBC interview.
” The authorities have taken away all the children”, Muhammad Sharif told us. They were at ease with me. He said Sharif and Batool weren’t there during the attack, but the authorities took all five of the youngsters.
After the assault, we were the first reporters to enter the home. The children’s rooms were still filled with the neon-plastic products they had been using. The smashed entrance was finely splintered.
Then, Mr Munir tells us things incredible.
As we’d been filming that morning, Sara’s father, mother and brother had been hiding in the house next door- only yards away.
He says police only had permission to go into the grandfather’s house, so couldn’t check other nearby properties.
Cameras had been installed, attached to a big LCD screen, so the family could see when the police were coming.
The night the police closed in, Mr Munir says Sara’s father, uncle and stepmother “ran away”. They called him, and he made the trip to pick them up.
He claims the family recognized the game’s existence the day afterward. A court instructed that the children be placed in a children’s home in Pakistan.
We attended the hearing. The youngest of the five children was carried by the eldest of the five children through a crowd of local journalists and police officers in an effort to shield their faces from camera flashes.
The adults are said to have returned to the UK because of the children’s loss and growing police pressure. He claimed Sharif, Batool, and Malik then called a Surrey Police agent and a lawyer to say they would be back within days.
Even though there was an Interpol notice to find them, he claimed to have booked flights in their names. Mr. Munir claimed to have driven the trio to the airport and that Urfan even called them from the arrival lounge to let them know they had passed airport security.
When they arrived at Gatwick Airport, all three were arrested for Sara’s murder. A court granted all the siblings ‘ temporary stays with a relative in Pakistan the following month. Surrey County Council is still attempting to repatriate them from the United Kingdom. Their family in Pakistan is attempting to keep them there.
It is difficult to confirm every aspect of Mr Munir’s story. He claims that the family was with him when his phone was taken by the police; however, he claims that he has no photos of the time.
He has kept his story simple and to the point. He didn’t come to us. After several months of searching, we found him. We are also aware that his property was raided by the police and that they initially had suspicions about his involvement.
I was interested in hearing why he was happy to speak to us throughout our conversation.
” One should tell what has happened”, he says. ” The person who conceals reality is not a good person.”
However, when Mr. Munir arrived with the family, he was aware that the 10-year-old girl had been found dead and that police wanted to speak with the three adults hiding in his home.
Since then, the murder trial in London has learned how Sara’s body was discovered along with dozens of injuries. She had endured more than two years of horrifying abuse, which included being hooded, burned, and beaten.
Mr Munir was clear, even before the trial, there should be consequences for her brutal death. He says,” Who has done this to Sara should be punished because they have done a great injustice.”
Someone who knowingly hid the three adults appears to be responding in a contradictory way.
Mr. Munir kept asking me why he had helped the family and whether he thought he had done anything wrong hiding the adults.
” The case was in the UK, it had nothing to do with Pakistan”, he says. ” If it had been a problem in Pakistan, then maybe I wouldn’t have taken such a big risk.
” I helped Urfan and the young children. If I hadn’t helped them, they would have been completely helpless. I assisted them in taking care of the children and felt sorry for them.
” They were my people. Who would have been held accountable for them if I hadn’t stood by them and something bad had happened to them?
The family’s grandfather and other family members have repeatedly complained in court that the police had pressed them to give up their whereabouts.
Pakistani police refute this assertion. They say, since the hunt, all the cases against the family have been dropped.
However, Pakistan’s decision to import the five children has had lasting effects.
All five, who until that point had spent their lives in the UK, are still in Pakistan. For now, their future is still uncertain.