Scottish MP to meet with missing girl
A Labour MP will attempt to meet missing Scottish schoolgirl Molly Campbell in Pakistan tomorrow, where she is thought to have travelled with her father last weekend.
Mohammad Sarwar, the MP for Glasgow Govan, was due to visit Lahore on other business but has agreed to try to track down the 12-year-old, who disappeared from her home in Stornaway last Friday.
She is thought to have flown to Pakistan with her father and sister, but it is not known whether she went willingly or was forced to leave. On Tuesday, Molly’s mother, Louise, made an empassioned plea for her daughter to come home.
This morning Mr Sarwar met with Molly’s mother – who is her legal guardian – at Glasgow airport and told said he would try to mediate with her estranged husband, Sajed Rana, who is from Pakistan.
“I told her I would be happy to mediate in this difficult dispute.and hopefully we will be able to find the mechanism and solution that is acceptable to all family members,” he told reporters afterwards.
“I will be talking to Molly tomorrow morning in private and after that I will know if she left the country happily or if she was forced.”
The Labour MSP for the Western Isles, Alasdair Morrison, was also present at today’s meeting and said Mr Sarwar has reassured Molly’s mother that her daughter was not going to be forced into marriage.
“We discussed a wide range of issues, but Mr Sarwar gave Molly’s mother cast iron assurances on the issue of forced marriage,” the MSP said.
He added: “The first and most important thing is to establish Molly’s physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, and he will do that tomorrow. He will meet her in private, and then he will try to establish contact between her and her mother.”
Glasgow SNP councillor Bashir Ahmad is hoping to discuss Molly’s situation with Pakistan’s prime minister tomorrow, and the British high commission in Islamabad has already got involved.
The Foreign Office said it was up to Molly’s family to decide whether to take the issue to court.
