Missing bride: After landing in Islamabad, woman vanishes

Woman goes missing after clearing immigration; family, police stumped for answers.

RAWALPINDI:

A smiling husband was waiting for his new bride at Benazir Bhutto International Airport. She was flying in from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Pakistan International Airlines flight PK-742, which landed before dawn on Sunday. But after hours of waiting, Ismail Khan realised his wife was not in the terminal anymore.

Shamrina, 18, mysteriously went missing from the airport. Shamrina married to Ismail some eight months ago, and came from Jeddah to meet her husband and his family.

“I talked to her on the phone before she got on the flight for Islamabad; her father dropped her at the airport… PK-742 landed here at 4:30am but she didn’t come out,” said Khan, who hails from Bannu in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.  He kept waiting at the airport with his uncle for hours. “Initially we thought the immigration process was taking her a long time, but we began worrying when we realised that nearly six hours had passed,” he said while narrating his ordeal.

They were stunned when an Airport Security Force (ASF) official told them that all passengers coming from Jeddah had checked out. “We ran all over the airport. We even went to the restrooms and parking lot to look for Shamrina, but she was nowhere to be found,” the dejected Khan added.

The attitude of PIA staff added to their miseries, as none of the staff members cooperated with Ismail and his uncle, giving them a cold shoulder instead. Khan complained that despite repeated requests to PIA and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), they failed to confirm whether Shamrina had actually boarded the plane at Jeddah and landed at Islamabad.

Disappointed with PIA and CAA authorities, Khan decided to approach police on Sunday evening.

The Airport Police Assistant Sub-Inspector Abdur Rehman confirmed that Shamrina’s family had filed a complaint and that investigation was underway. “We have not registered an FIR of the incident yet, but the initial inquiry is underway. We asked the family to provide us with the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the missing woman’s cell phone,” the police official dealing with the inquiry said.

So far, the police know that Shamrina had gone through immigration at the airport and her passport was properly stamped.

However, there is no clue how she went missing afterwards because her family never saw her leave the arrival lounge. Khan told the police that the couple had a healthy relationship and there were no problems between them.

Neither Khan nor the police have seen the CCTV footage from the arrival lounge to check whether Shamrina really came out of the lounge or disappeared inside the airport.

ASI Rehman said a request for the footage has been made and that the police are “trying their best to locate her but due to the Muharram holidays, it is becoming difficult to get the required information from the departments concerned.”

Khan and Shamrina are paternal cousins. She was born in Pakistan but moved to Saudi Arabia with her mother to join her father there, who has been living and working there for 30 years. After getting married, she lived in Pakistan for two months and then went to Saudi Arabia to meet her parents and perform Hajj.

According to Khan, Shamrina was carrying 8,000 Saudi riyals as well as gold worth around Rs350,000. She was also carrying two suitcases and a handbag. Ismail has not slept since the disappearance of his wife, hoping to find her somewhere. He is also worried for his in-laws in Saudi Arabia, who are distraught about their missing daughter.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2011.