FIA’s cybercrime cell joins investigation into Dua’s disappearance

The cybercrime Circle of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has jumped into the ‘mysterious’ kidnapping case of a teenage girl, Dua Zehra Kazmi, in Karachi. An FIA team visited the girl’s family in order to get digital evidence that could help the police investigators probe the case and recover the girl.

The case of mysterious disappearance of the teenage girl from Karachi’s Al-Falah Colony area is yet to be solved as police continue to look for her. Fourteen-year-old Dua Zehra Kazmi went missing around six days ago.

The four-member team of the FIA that visited Dua’s home explained that the agency had taken the initiative of joining the case itself. “No one approached us as it is a police case but it is our own decision to help the family and the police investigators for the early and safe recovery of the girl,” FIA cybercrime cell chief Imran Riaz said as he spoke to The News before visiting the girl’s house. “We are carrying out technical support, looking into social media accounts and doing other work.”

He said the FIA team was to visit the missing girl’s house. “Let’s see what we find from the house digitally,” the officer added. Three special police teams have been formed for early and safe recovery of the girl but they have so far achieved no breakthrough despite the passage of six days since the girl went missing.

A day earlier on Thursday, Dua’s mother said that if her daughter was not recovered, she and her family would commit suicide in front of the Governor House.

The girl had reportedly stepped out of her house to dispose of garbage when she went missing. After the case was highlighted on social media, Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon visited the girl’s house to assure her family of complete cooperation on part of the law enforcement agency. Karachi police investigators also conducted a raid in connection with the Dua case in Sanghar district on Thursday but they found another young girl during the raid. The investigators also did not find any CCTV footage that could help them solve the case.

SHO suspended

The station house officer (SHO) of the Al-Falah police station was suspended after the police admitted the mistake of connecting a video with Dua’s disappearance that suggested that the girl had left the house voluntarily.

Admitting that the video did not pertain to Dua, the police withdrew the claim that the girl had willingly left her house. Following this, the Al-Falah SHO, Badar Shakeel, was suspended. “The video was shown to the people of the neighbourhood. They confirmed that the girl going voluntarily was Dua Zehra. But it was an error as she was not Dua Zehra. She was another girl,” the SHO clarified.

The police had earlier also claimed that they had found important evidence from a home-based internet device, which suggested the girl going including a search history for a marriage of choice, which the family refused. The family also appealed the higher authorities to take action against the SHO for making a wrong report.

Parliamentarians’ visit

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MNA and Rabita Committee member Kishwar Zehra on Friday visited the house of Dua along with party senator Khalida Tayyab and members of the party’s women wing, adds our correspondent.

According to a statement issued by the MQM-P, the party delegation met parents of Dua and expressed concern over the police not being able to trace the whereabouts of the girl. The MNA assured the family of the party’s full support to them in the time of distress. The innocent girl, she said, had to be traced at any cost. She stressed how every day, thousands of women and girls head out of their homes for jobs and education and incidents like that of Dua’s disappearance would create fear in society. She asked the chief minister and other high-ups to look into the matter. She also requested the judiciary to take suo motu notice on the disappearance of Dua.