Police rule out abduction after weeks of inquiry in teenage girl's disappearance

Over 120 people interrogated, 7,000 phone calls analysed by investigators

ISLAMABAD: Two teenage girls who were also first cousins disappeared from their homes in Khanna area on October 16 last year. Ever since, the police have interviewed more than a 100 people and analysed around 7,000 phone calls in order to trace out the girls but without success. The police and the missing girls’ families are as clueless as they were on the first day.

The girls*, both around 15 years of age at the time, went missing on the evening of October 16, 2016 from Zia Masjid area. Khanna police had registered a kidnapping case and also arrested four persons including two women on the complaint of the families but no clue was found. The National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) also took suo motu notice of the issue after a story appeared in The Express Tribune on August 15.



Islamabad Police, in their reply to NCHR, said they had interviewed a total of 123 people including several relatives and neighbours of the two girls, their school fellows and teachers as well as ordinary suspects. The police also dispatched teams to various locations in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab but to no avail. The police also analysed mobile phone records of various relatives of the girls and other suspects and data of a total of 7,000 phone calls were analysed.

Police have also written letters to government-run women and juvenile shelters in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. To date, they have received replies from 43 shelter houses, all in negative.

Investigators also sent photographs and information about the girls to hospitals, jail and marriage registration authorities as well as FIA, NADRA and State Bank. DNA samples from the girls’ families were matched with some unclaimed bodies but to no result. Record of unclaimed bodies in Punjab and K-P was also checked with reports from Punjab negative.

Several meetings were chaired by IGP, SSP-Operations and SP-Investigation Islamabad over the issue. Only one of the nominated suspects, a resident of Khyber Agency, was yet to be interrogated by the time the police submitted their report on August 28.

Going by the investigation findings so far, the police believe that the girls were not kidnapped, rather they went somewhere on their own. “After detailed interrogation and technical analyses, it appears that the girls have gone of their own volition as during the course of investigation no evidence has come on record that shows the possibility of kidnapping of girls by anyone,” the police report said. It added that the only eyewitness who saw the girls going out of home, has also stated that they were moving in the street on their own with a school bag carrying clothes. The case, however, is still open and a reward of Rs0.1 million has also been announced for anybody who can lead the police to the girls.

*NAMES WITHHELD TO PROTECT IDENTITY

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2017.