The video, which appears to have been recorded on a smartphone, shows Sara\u2019s stepmother with her father Urfan Sharif beside her. Ms Batool claims the couple are willing to co-operate with UK authorities, and that their family is in hiding out of fear of torture by Pakistani police.<\/p>\n
Ms Batool is the only one who speaks in the video, while Urfan sits silently. Reading from a notebook, she describes Sara\u2019s death as an \u201cincident\u201d, and alleged that police in Pakistan were harassing the couple\u2019s extended family, illegally detaining them and raiding their homes.<\/p>\n
She spoke briefly of Sara. \u201cFirstly, I would like to talk about Sara. Sara\u2019s death was an incident. Our family in Pakistan are severely affected by all that is going on,\u201d Ms Batool said.<\/p>\n
\nClaim they are willing to cooperate with UK authorities; say they fear \u2018torture\u2019 by Pakistani police<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cAll the media have been giving wrong statements and making up lies. \u201cImran [one of Mr Sharif\u2019s brothers] did not give a statement that Sara fell down the stairs and broke her neck. This was spread through a Pakistani media outlet. I am very worried about Imran\u2019s safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
She claimed the family is running out of food and is unable to leave home. \u201cAll of our family members have gone into hiding as everyone is scared for their safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids are unable to attend school as they\u2019re afraid to leave the house. No one is leaving the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe groceries have run out and there is no food for the kids as the adults are unable to leave their homes out of fear for safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Batool said that the reason the family is in hiding is because they fear that the Pakistan police will torture and kill them.<\/p>\n
But Jhelum police chief Mehmood Bajwa told the BBC the allegations of \u201charassment and torture of family members are false\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last month, Urfan Sharif\u2019s father had petitioned the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court against the harassment of his family members. The court barred the police from detaining them again but the officers said they would continue to question them.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Sara\u2019s mother Olga, in an interview with a Polish channel, said the girl had been so badly injured that she \u201cdid not recognise her\u201d in the mortuary.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of her cheeks was swollen and the other side was bruised. Even now, when I close my eyes I can see what my baby looked like,\u201d Olga said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The grandfather and uncle of Sara Sharif have previously claimed that her death was \u201caccidental\u201d, with one account reported in the media claiming \u201cshe fell down the stairs and broke her neck\u201d.<\/p>\n
Urfan, his brother Faisal Malik, Beenish and five children flew from the UK to Pakistan a day after Sara died. Police believe the trio left the country on Aug 9, a day before Sara\u2019s body was discovered.<\/p>\n
Surrey Police said a post-mortem examination revealed Sara \u201csuffered multiple and extensive injuries\u201d, which they said were \u201clikely to have been caused over a sustained and extended period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n
She was previously known to authorities, according to Surrey County Council, while Surrey Police said they had \u2018limited and historic contact\u2019 with Sara\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON: Beenish Batool, the stepmother of the 10-year-old found dead in her Woking home last month, released a video message on Wednesday, the first public statement by the deceased minor\u2019s immediate family. The video, which appears to have been recorded on a smartphone, shows Sara\u2019s stepmother with her father Urfan Sharif beside her. Ms Batool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/07075100047b745.png?r=075201","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}