Family of missing 12-year-old girl starts campaign to find her

Accuse police of not cooperating to locate Samina who went missing from Phase-I, DHA.

KARACHI: Samina Maqbool, a 12-year-old girl who was living with her uncle and aunt in Phase-I of the Defence Housing Authority, has been missing for four days. But apart from adding her name to the ‘missing persons’ list, the police haven’t been able to do much. 

Originally from Multan, Punjab, Samina is the second among five siblings and her father is a prayer leader at a Masjid in Multan. The girl had been living with her aunt and uncle in Karachi for the last one-and-a-half year.



“She left the house on September 23 around 11am to buy candies,” said the missing girl’s uncle, Mohammad Fayyaz, who works at a workshop in DHA Phase-I. “Since then, we have been visiting the police station but they just ask us to go back home, assuring that they will inform us when she is traced.”

While talking to The Express Tribune, Fayyaz complained that the police were not cooperating with them and hadn’t even visited the area from where she went missing. “We feel helpless. We haven’t been able to sleep or eat properly since she went missing,” he said. “We don’t have a house of our own and are living in a bungalow of the workshop’s owner on temporary basis. My wife is a hepatitis patient and we brought Samina to our home so she could help take care of my wife as well as the house. She wasn’t that familiar with Karachi and its people.”

The family is unclear on whether Samina has been kidnapped but have started a campaign to find her by placing pamphlets with her picture and details on rickshaws.

Meanwhile, the Defence police station DSP Tariq Mughal told The Express Tribune that the police will cooperate with the family of the missing girl. “I agree that the police should take concrete steps to find the girl,” he said, adding that action would be taken against those officials found guilty of delaying the investigation. “The family should also approach the senior police officials if the juniors are not cooperating.”

No case had been registered till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2013.