ISLAMABAD  -  The arrest of the trio wanted in the mysterious death of British minor Sara Sharif by UK authori­ties could only be made possible with the efforts of Islamabad’s NCB (National Central Bureau)-INTERPOL and Punjab Police, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Thursday. A day earlier, British authorities had arrested Urfan Sharif, father of the deceased minor, his part­ner Beinash Batool, and brother Faisal Shahzad Malik soon after they landed in London. Sara was found dead at her home under mysterious conditions in the UK town of Woking on August 10 and a post-mortem report re­vealed she had suffered multiple injuries over a sustained period.

Urfan, his wife and brother had fled from the UK to Pakistan on August 9 along with their five kids including Norman Sharif, Hannah Sharif, Bisma Sharif, Mu­hammad Sharif, and Azlan Sharif. On this, NCB-INTERPOL Man­chester (UK) had approached the NCB-INTERPOL Islamabad to search and locate the accused persons as well as five missing minors, a spokesperson of FIA said in a statement. INTERPOL Manchester issued “Blue” notices against the accused and “Yellow” notices in respect of the minors and shared them with NCB- IN­TERPOL Islamabad, which is run by the FIA at its headquarters. According to the spokesperson, the information was immediately shared with Punjab Police in dis­trict Jhelum by the agency with the request to trace the offenders and kids and ensure children’s safety. Missing kids were found by the Jhelum Police and handed over their custody to the Child Protection Bureau on court’s or­ders. As police were probing the case, accused persons, not finding any relief in Pakistan, fled from Pakistan to the UK, the spokes­person said. The trio was arrested at Gatwick Airport at about 19:45 BST on September 13, he added.

The accused are now under the custody of UK police authori­ties for further investigation of the case, according to the FIA. “The arrest became possible only because of efforts of NCB-INTERPOL Islamabad and Pun­jab Police,” the spokesperson further said, adding that Islam­abad shared timely information with the UK side, which led to the arrest of the accused.