Sara Sharif ‘seen with injuries at school’ before her death

A 10-year-old girl was seen with cuts and bruises on her face at school just a few months before she died.

Sara Sharif was found dead at her home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August, after her father, Urfan Sharif, called police from Pakistan at 2.50am on that day.

The girl’s father, who is 41, his brother Faisal Malik, 28, and Urfan’s partner, Beinash Batool, 29, are wanted for questioning by Surrey Police. The three “are thought to have travelled from the UK to Islamabad the day before”, said Sky News.

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But a former neighbour of the family told the BBC that her daughter, one of Sara’s classmates, saw injuries on the 10-year-old earlier this year.

The former neighbour, who asked only to be identified as Jessica, said: “Just before the Easter holidays she was in school and had cuts and bruises on her face and her neck. My daughter had asked what had happened and she said she’d fallen off a bike and then kind of walked away.

“The next day the teacher announced she had left school and she was being home-schooled,” Jessica added.

Sara’s exact cause of death remains unknown, but Sky News has reported that another of Sharif’s uncles, Imran Malik, has told Pakistani police that he was told that she broke her neck when falling down the stairs.

He is alleged to have told officers: “Beinash was home with the children. Sara fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Beinash panicked and phoned Urfan.”

Surrey Police said a post-mortem examination revealed Sara “suffered multiple and extensive injuries”, which they said were “likely to have been caused over a sustained and extended period of time”.

Authorities in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab are seeking to arrest Urfan, and say the girl’s father had briefly returned to the city of Jhelum before disappearing.