LARKANA: Preliminary investigation into the disappearance of a young girl, believed to be aged between 12 and 15, Kainat Narejo, along with her three-year-old brother, Noor Narejo, in Naudero on Wednesday has made police believe that the young girl had intentionally left home though a reason was yet to be ascertained.

The probe is being conducted by a team comprising Ratodero DSP Sirajuddin Dayo, SHOs of Naudero, Market and Haideri police stations, Azhar Mangi, Sartaj Jagirani and Aslam Parvaiz Abro, respectively, and traffic police sergeant Waheed Abro under the supervision Larkana SSP Tanveer Hussain Tunio.

SSP Tunio told Dawn on Thursday that although the siblings’ parents claimed that Kainat along with her little brother had left home to buy milk from the cattle pen in the nearby Khuhra locality and went missing, the investigators came to know that she was aged 15 and not 12 as was claimed.

Sharing some other “facts” with this reporter, the SSP quoted a coach driver and its conductor as saying that “the girl [Kainat], who had Rs700 with her and was accompanied by a little boy [Noor] came to the coach’s pick-up point and tried to buy a ticket for their travel to Karachi. She told us she intended to meet her relatives in Karachi. She also gave us two mobile phone numbers”.

The SSP further quoted the coach crew as saying that the driver dialled one of the two numbers which belonged to someone present in Sibi [Balochistan] and the other one was found switched off.

The coach crew told investigators that the girl along with the boy slipped away from the pick-up point, said the SSP.

The coach driver and conductor have been taken into custody for further interrogation while the investigators are continuing to collect facts and evidence from her home and the places where she was spotted by people before the siblings disappeared, according to the SSP.

Three persons — the owners of the cattle pen and a neighbour of the aggrieved family — were also briefly picked up and interrogated to ascertain facts, sources privy to the investigation said.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018