KARACHI: The case of the two children who went missing from the Garden area last week took a new turn on Wednesday when investigators discovered that the couple seen in a CCTV footage “kidnapping the boys on a motorbike” was, in fact, taking their own children to a clinic and that the boys in the video were not those who are missing.

The minor boys, Aliyan and Ali Raza, went missing while they were playing outside their homes and since then, their whereabouts are not known as police have failed to make any meaningful progress in the case.

The officials had earlier claimed that they had obtained a CCTV footage which showed a man and a woman taking away the children on a motorcycle.

On Wednesday, however, DIG-South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn that investigators had obtained another CCTV footage which showed that the couple on the bike were actually taking their own children to a clinic and were also seen returning with them. Contrary to the initial assumptions based on the first footage, those were not the children who have gone missing, the DIG clarified.

New CCTV footage reveals couple thought to have kidnapped the boys was in fact taking their own children to clinic; police and rescue services launch search operation

Following this, police and rescue services had initiated search operations in Garden and surrounding areas to find any further clues about the missing children, the officer added.

Meanwhile, the city police spokesperson in a statement said that a combing/search operation was launched in Garden Dhobi Ghat and adjoining areas. Rescue-1122 and Edhi Foundation volunteers also conducted searches in Lyari River while house-to-house search was also conducted.

City SSP Arif Aziz also met with the families of the missing children and assured them that the children would be recovered soon. Some suspects were taken into custody for interrogation, he added.

Protest against police for failing to nab Sarim’s killer(s)

Parents and area residents on Wednesday held a protest outside an apartment complex in North Karachi from where seven-year-old Muhammad Sarim was kidnapped, raped and then murdered, and whose body was found from an underground water tank after 11 days of disappearance.

The grief-stricken family and the locals staged the sit-in on the main road, causing disruption of traffic. The parents told the media that they were not satisfied with the investigation of the police. They said that from the very first day of the disappearance of Sarim on January 7, no outcome of the probe had emerged.

They said that some suspects had been detained by the police but no concrete result had emerged in terms of arrest of the killer(s). They announced to continue the protest till the provision of justice.

Meanwhile, the police said that DNA samples of the held suspects had been taken and sent to a lab at the University of Karachi.

West-DIG Irfan Ali Baloch said that he had formed a Special Investigation Team comprising a DSP and three police inspectors to solve the case with immediate effect. The team will make ‘hectic efforts and utilise all available resources for the arrest of the involved accused person(s) at earliest.’ The team had been directed to furnish progress reports on a daily basis, he added.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025