Hello, your daughter is dead

Missing girl's family plagued by prank calls
August 30, 2007

Nurin has been missing for more than a week. -- Picture: HARIAN METRO


THEIR little girl has been missing for more than a week. And Mr Jazimin Abd Jalil, 33, and his wife, Madam Norazian Bistaman, 35, have been busy searching for their 8-year-old daughter and giving out fliers and posters asking for information.

Every time the phone rings, Madam Norazian's heart jumps with the hope that the call brings good news, reported Bernama.

But, instead of helpful tip-offs, the couple have been receiving nuisance calls and SMSes telling them their daughter is dead, reported Harian Metro.

Madam Norazian told Harian Metro: 'I was sad to receive many alarming phone calls and SMSes from people who told me my child had been found dead in a pond or river in an area near here and they seemed to enjoy it.

Little Nurin, a primary 2 student, went missing on 20 Aug after she went to a night market about 100m from her home in Kuala Lumpur to buy her favourite snack - a burger.

Her mother told Bernama: 'A mother would surely have her heart crushed when her beloved child is not by her side.

'I cry the moment I think of what has happened. If only I had accompanied Nurin to the night market, surely she would not have gone missing.

'Almost all the traders at the night market know Nurin, that's why I'm perplexed as to how she could have gone missing. It's not as if we have enemies.'

Meanwhile, Utusan Malaysia reported that a night market stall holder has come forward to say that Nurin had bought murtabak from him the night she disappeared.

Mr Kamarul Hisham Ab Suki, 27, said that after paying RM4 ($1.75) for the two murtabak, Nurin did not head straight home, but stopped to talk with a neighbouring stallholder.

He said: 'Later, I noticed she wasn't there any more. But I didn't suspect anything was wrong as I thought she had gone home.'

Since that night, the family has been searching everywhere for the little girl.

Madam Norazian said the family needs the public's support.

Harian Metro quoted her as saying: 'If you can't help, it's all right, but I plead with you not to play with our feelings as we are very stressed.'

This is not the first time a family in this situation has fallen prey to prank calls.

In September last year, the family of a 15-year-old girl who lied that her baby had disappeared, received many phone calls from people demanding ransom.

Actually, the baby's mother had given the child up for adoption.

In May last year, the parents of missing girl Lo Ching Poon also received calls from people claiming to have kidnapped the child.

The girl's body was later found in an orchard in Johor.

Meanwhile, Nurin's parents are convinced that the calls claiming that the child is dead, are wrong.

They are convinced she is still alive. That is what many traditional healers they have consulted have told them.

Mr Jazimin told Harian Metro: 'What is strange is that almost all the bomohs that we have seen have said that she is still alive and is under a spell and is now with a foreign woman.'

- Electric New Paper (Singapore)