SHARJAH // The family of a 12-year-old girl who fell to her death from the eighth floor of a building nearly two weeks ago are still waiting to get the child’s body from Sharjah authorities so they can cremate her.
The parents of Harjapjot Bajwa, a Grade 8 pupil at the Sharjah Indian School, said they were still seeking answers on how the girl was found dead outside a building in Al Qasimiyah hours after returning from school 10 days ago.
“The court has given us the no objection certificate for cremation and a letter asking the Ministry of Health to issue a death certificate,” said Gurudev Singh, Harjapjot’s father.
“But a medical report is needed for the death certificate and the police doctor has to give the report. We are running around to get the paperwork done. Once they give us the medical report, we can get the certificate and then get our daughter’s body.”
Mr Singh said the family would like to cremate their daughter in the UAE.
“We don’t understand what is happening. Our relatives have come from India to provide moral support and help with the cremation,” he said, adding he had approached the Indian Association in Sharjah for assistance.
Mr Singh, who runs a transport company in Ajman, said the family were also waiting to know the cause of their daughter’s death. “We do not know how she died. We hope the death certificate will give us some answers,” the father said.
Harjapjot took a taxi to Sharjah after the school bus dropped her outside her Ajman home.
Her parents believe she first went to a friend’s house to ask for money to pay for the taxi and, when refused, she went in the same taxi to a shopping mall in Sharjah.
She offered to pay the driver with her earrings, but when the driver refused she gave her mother’s phone number and ran away.
Harjapjot’s school remembered her as an easy-going, jovial and above-average pupil, the principal said last week.
pkannan@thenational.ae