Missing child : Have you seen this boy?

Abid has been missing since Thursday morning.

KARACHI: The police have been asked to start looking for 13-year-old Muhammad Abid who has been missing since he left his aunt’s home to attend his madrassa on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday night, when his father Muhammad Sharif blew a fuse, telling Abid that it was not safe to play with friends till late, the young boy left in a huff for his aunt’s place. She lives a block away in Machi Para near Tanzeem Sports Ground in upper Gizri.

The next morning, Abid asked a cousin to pick his school bag from home, however, he left his aunt’s house without taking the bag with him. “Abid neither reached the madrassa, which is where he told his aunt he was going, when he left at 11am, nor did he reach PAK Grammar School where he is a fourth grader,” said Sharif, who works as a chef at the Red Apple fast food restaurant at Khadda market, DHA Phase V.

“Initially, I thought he’d return back after staying at some friend’s place but as time passed I grew anxious,” said Sharif.

The family has asked friends, family, acquaintances, hospitals but there has been no news. The family does not have any enmities either, they said.

After waiting a day and a half, Sharif filed a missing persons report at the Gizri police station on Friday evening.

“On the premise that the family of the person in question is of the labour class, the possibility of kidnapping is very slim,” said Shahid Chaudhry, the SHO of the Gizri police station. “However, we will look at it from angles other than that, as a step taken in anger if we won’t receive any information in the next 24 hours.”

If anyone has any information please contact his father Mohammad Sharif at 0307 2644 836.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th,  2011.