‘I hid Sara Sharif’s family during international police hunt’

A man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle waves us down an alley. We’re in a small village in eastern Pakistan, to meet someone who says he can tell us how Sara Sharif’s family managed to hide from police for more than four weeks during an international police hunt.

He was the one who hid them, he tells us.

For nearly a month, police searched for the family of eight – Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, her stepmother Beinash Batool and uncle Faisal Malik, along with five of her siblings.

They had flown to Pakistan on 9 August 2023 – a day before 10-year-old Sara’s battered and lifeless body was found in a bedroom at their home in Woking, Surrey.

Having received a notice from Interpol to locate Sharif, Batool and Malik, police started a high profile search for the family across Pakistan, deploying multiple teams.

They suspected Rasikh Munir, a relative of Urfan Sharif’s, of helping them. But during multiple raids on his property, they failed to find the family.

The children were later found at another relative’s home. Mr Munir told us that was the moment Sharif, Batool and Malik decided to fly back to England, where they were finally arrested on 13 September 2023.

The BBC has followed the story in Pakistan since the first media reports of Sara’s death broke.

We met Rasikh Munir before Sara’s father, uncle and stepmother were put on trial for her murder in London, before the jury heard horrific details of the injuries that Sara had sustained – bite marks, iron burns and injuries caused by hot liquid.

He told us he had believed Sharif was innocent and that he’d taken the family in to protect the children. He also revealed extraordinary details: about how the family had hidden in corn fields when police raided his home at night and how he’d driven them around the local area, buying ice creams and even visiting hairdressers while detectives searched for them.

And remarkably, he said Sharif, Batool and Malik had been hiding in a neighbouring house just metres away from us as we spoke to Sara’s grandfather shortly after her siblings had been taken away by police.

A jury at London’s Old Bailey has now found Sharif and Batool guilty of murdering Sara. Malik was cleared of murder but has been found guilty of causing or allowing her death.