RAWALPINDI: The body of a four-year-old boy, who went missing about two months ago in Rawat, was recovered from a pond close to the house where he had gone along with her mother and two siblings to attend a wedding ceremony.

The mother, who also had a baby girl and a son younger than the missing boy, did not leave the house for two weeks in a hope that he would be reunited with her son.

But after her husband’s condition deteriorated due to cancer, she returned to her home, and the boy’s father passed away a few days later, one of their relatives said.

Omer Rauf, a resident of Rawat, told Dawn that his sister with her three children had gone to participate in a wedding ceremony of a relative on November 23 when her elder son Arshman went missing while playing with other children outside the area. He recalled that there had been an aerial firing in the village due to which some of the children among them his nephew had run away in panic.

After some time when his sister realised that her son had gone missing, a search was launched but the boy could not be traced.

Later, the relatives sought police help and registered an FIR with the Rawat police.

The parents of the missing boy had to pass through another ordeal in the hands of police investigating officer, Mr Rauf claimed.

“The IO demanded Nikahnama and CNIC of my sister and also harassed the younger brother of my sister who had accompanied her to the wedding ceremony,” he alleged.

Mr Rauf said he approached the regional police officer (RPO) and the city police officer Rawalpindi seeking their help, but his efforts remained unproductive.

The body of the missing boy was found after a passerby couple spotted the body on the surface of the pond on Saturday and informed the villagers.

“Yes, it was the body of young Arshman clad in the wedding dress when it was taken out of the water,” Mr Rauf told Dawn.

He said the police investigating officer visited the spot and shifted the body to the District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.

On the other hand, a police spokesman said CPO Syed Khalid Hamdani had taken notice of the incident and sought a report from the SP Saddar Division.

The spokesman said that four-year-old Arshman went to a wedding with his mother in November and went missing while playing with other children. A case of the incident was registered at Rawat police station and a search was launched. “The police made every effort to search the child using all technical and human intelligence sources.”

The child’s family also worked with the police to search for the child but remained unsuccessful. The child’s body was found in a pond near the location where he had gone to the wedding ceremony with his mother, said the spokesman.

It appears to be a case of death after falling into the pond while playing; however, a postmortem has been conducted on the body.

The postmortem report will definitively determine the actual cause of the boy’s death, said the police spokesman.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2025