Watch: Mr Munir shows BBC inside his house where he says the family hid
A man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle beckons us in 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 the police for more than four weeks during an international police hunt.
He was the one who hid them, he tells us.
For almost a month, police searched for the family of eight: Sara's father Urfan Sharif, her stepmother Beinash Batool and her uncle Faisal Malik, as well as five of her siblings.
They had flown to Pakistan on August 9, 2023, a day before the battered and lifeless body of 10-year-old Sara was found in a bedroom of their home in Woking, Surrey.
Having received a notice from Interpol asking to locate Sharif, Batool and Malik, police launched a high-profile search for the family across Pakistan, deploying several teams.
They suspected Rasikh Munir, a relative of Urfan Sharif, of helping them. But during multiple searches of his property, they were unable to find the family.
The children were later found at the home of another relative. Mr Munir told us that it was at this point that Sharif, Batool and Malik decided to return to England, where they were eventually arrested on September 13, 2023.
The BBC has been following the story in Pakistan since first media reports of Sara's death.
We met Rasikh Munir before Sara's father, uncle and stepmother went on trial for her murder in London, before the jury heard horrific details of the injuries Sara suffered – bite marks , iron burns and injuries caused by hot liquid.
He told us he believed Sharif was innocent and had taken the family away to protect the children. He also revealed extraordinary details: about how the family hid in the cornfields when the police raided his house at night and how he drove them around, buying ice cream and even to the homes of hairdressers while detectives searched for them.
And remarkably, he said Sharif, Batool and Malik were hiding in a nearby house a few meters from us as we spoke to Sara's grandfather shortly after her siblings were taken away by police.
A jury at London's Old Bailey found Sharif and Batool guilty of Sara's murder. Malik was cleared of murder, but was found guilty of causing or permitting her death.
Olga Domin
The trial in London documented the horrific abuse Sara suffered.
We meet Rasikh Munir on the outskirts of Sialkot, an industrial district of Punjab, surrounded by rice fields and corn crops.
There is barbed wire above the gate of his house and a security camera is trained on us. He welcomes us, dressed in a tracksuit and sliders.
Before our meeting, Mr. Munir told me that he had done nothing wrong by hiding the family. Interpol didn't call for their arrest when they hid them, but they knew the police wanted to talk to the family about Sara's death.
When we come face to face, I wonder if he will be coy about his involvement, but within minutes of entering the house, his tour begins.
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“That was Urfan’s room,” he said, showing me a dark room with closed curtains and a white bed frame with a yellow patterned sheet. “They (Sharif and Malik) slept here, they used this table to eat.”
It shows a red plastic table and a blue sofa. “They were sitting here with Beinash to contact the lawyer and discuss how they should speak to the police in the UK.”
He takes me to a second bedroom, decorated with dark red curtains and a double bed squeezed next to a wooden wardrobe. It was here, he said, that Batool and the children slept – some on the bed, others on mattresses on the floor.
As we speak, I notice the outline of a gun tucked into his waistband. When we ask about guns, we are told that they are used to protect us from thieves.
The room where Rasikh says Beinash Batool and the children were sleeping – Urfan Sharif's clothes are laid out on the bed
We climb onto a flat, open roof, where there is an empty clothesline. “From this roof, you could see the police on all four sides,” Mr. Munir said, pointing to the fields.
Except for a few one-story buildings and a few trees, the view is almost unobstructed to the main road.
The police visited the scene several times during the night. Mr. Munir tells us that the family hid from the police in a thick cornfield, a few meters from the house – the adults and five children hiding in the dark, in a hot and humid climate.
Mr. Munir said the younger children were afraid when they hid from the police in the cornfields near his home.
“No police ever checked this area. The children only had one bag, they didn't have many clothes with them. Most of their belongings were in my car, which I parked in a safe place “, he said.
“The younger people didn’t know what was going on,” he says. “They were afraid, they didn’t understand.”
This was not the first time the family had visited the house. Last time, Sara was there too. “She was a very nice girl,” Mr. Munir recalled.
During the international police hunt, he claims that the family stayed with him for several weeks, but that they were not in permanent hiding.
He tells us he was driving them between his house in Sialkot and the town of Jhelum, two hours away, where Sara's grandfather lived. He would take them to get haircuts around town and sometimes for ice cream and pizza.
Before the police hunt intensified, he says the family was able to pass through police checkpoints without incident.
But then the net started to tighten.
Just over three weeks after the search began, police found Sara's siblings at their grandfather's home. The BBC spoke to him minutes after the raid.
“The police took away all the children,” Muhammad Sharif told us. “They were safe with me.” He said Sharif and Batool were not there during the raid, but police took away the five children.
Police eventually found Sara's siblings at their grandfather Muhammad Sharif's home in Jhelum.
We were the first journalists to enter the house after the raid. The neon plastic toys the kids played with were still on the beds. The smashed door was freshly shattered.
Now Mr. Munir tells us something incredible.
While we were filming that day, Sara's father, stepmother and uncle were hiding in the house next door, a few meters away.
He said police only had permission to enter the grandfather's house and therefore could not check other nearby properties.
Cameras had been installed, linked to a large LCD screen, so the family could see when the police arrived.
The night the police arrived, Mr Munir says Sara's father, uncle and stepmother “ran away”. They called him and he went to get them.
He says the family realized the game was over the next day. A court ordered the children to be placed in a children's home in Pakistan.
We attended the hearing. The eldest of five children carried the youngest through a crowd of police and local journalists, trying to shield their faces from camera flashes.
Children's toys scattered on a bed at Sara's grandfather's house
Mr Munir says the loss of the children and increasing police pressure prompted the adults to return to the UK. He said Sharif, Batool and Malik then contacted a British lawyer and Surrey Police to tell them they would be back in a few days.
He told us he had booked flights in their names, even though there was an Interpol notice to trace them. Mr Munir said he drove the trio to the airport and Urfan even called him from the departure lounge to tell him they had passed through airport security.
Upon arrival at Gatwick Airport, all three were arrested for Sara's murder. The following month, a court allowed all siblings to temporarily stay with a relative in Pakistan. Surrey County Council is still trying to bring them back to the UK. Their family in Pakistan is fighting to keep them there.
It is difficult to confirm all aspects of Mr. Munir's story. He has no photos of the time his family was with him: his phone was seized by the police, he tells us.
He remained consistent and detailed in his story. He didn't come to us. After several months of searching, we found it. We also know that the police searched his property and were suspicious of his involvement from the start.
Throughout our conversation, I was curious as to why he was happy to talk to us.
“We have to tell what happened,” he said. “He who hides reality is not a good person.”
But when Mr. Munir greeted the family, he knew that the 10-year-old girl he had met several summers before had been found dead and that the police wanted to speak to the three adults hiding in his house.
The murder trial in London has since heard that Sara's body was found with dozens of injuries. She had been hooded, burned and beaten during more than two years of horrific abuse.
Mr. Munir was clear: even before the trial, his brutal death should have consequences. “Whoever did this to Sara should be punished because they committed a great injustice,” he said.
This seems like a contradictory response from someone who knowingly hid the three adults.
I continued to ask Mr. Munir if he thought he did anything wrong by hiding the adults and why he helped the family.
“The case happened in the UK, it had nothing to do with Pakistan,” he said. “If this had happened in Pakistan, I might not have taken such a big risk.
“I helped Urfan and the young children. If I hadn't helped them, they would have been completely helpless. I helped them take care of the children, I felt sympathy for them.
“They were my people. If I hadn't supported them and something bad had happened to them, who would have been responsible?
Sara's grandfather and other family members have repeatedly filed complaints in court, claiming that their family members were arrested by the police to pressure them into revealing their whereabouts. found.
Pakistani police deny it. Since the hunt, all charges against the family have been dropped.
But the consequences of the decision to bring the five children to Pakistan are not over.
All five, who until now spent their lives in the United Kingdom, are still in Pakistan. For now, their future is still uncertain.
