Dubai: Man in Pakistan seeks help to find brother missing for 46 years

Khalid Bashir Bhatti, a 38-year-old garment factory worker from Sialkot, Pakistan, has made a heartfelt plea for any information about his elder brother, Mohammed Afzal Bhatti, who went missing in Dubai in 1978.

Khalid, who has never met Afzal, is hoping to bring closure for their ageing father, Mohammed Bashir Bhatti, who has spent almost half a century longing for answers.

Afzal, an AC technician, had moved to Dubai in 1976 and lived in the Deira area, near the now-demolished Kader Hotel. Popular among South Asian expatriates, the bustling neighbourhood was Afzal’s home for two years. During that time, he maintained close contact with his family in Sialkot, regularly writing letters and sending gifts.

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Then in 1978, communication from Afzal suddenly stopped. A few days before he went missing, his father had got a letter from Afzal mentioning a dispute with a roommate. The father had replied to the letter asking Afzal to change his room and not take too much stress.

“That was the last our family heard from him,” Khalid told Khaleej Times over the phone.

“Friends discovered his belongings in their shared flat — but Afzal was missing. We don’t know if he left out of depression or got into a fight with the roommate. Since we hardly had any relatives in Dubai and there were no computerised ID cards back then, it was very difficult to track him. It was like he vanished into thin air.”

A family’s grief

Khalid, the youngest of five siblings, learned about Afzal when he was in 10th grade. “My parents and sisters never told me because they didn’t want to confuse me. By the time I found out, he felt more like a legend than a real person,” said Khalid.

As years passed, the unresolved loss took a toll on their family. Determined to help, Khalid sought assistance from the Pakistani embassy in Dubai multiple times but the decades-long gap made the search nearly impossible.

“My mother passed away in 2002 without knowing what happened to her firstborn. My father, who is in his 80s now, spends his days waiting for news. His health is failing, and he still looks at the doorway, hoping to see his son return. We just want to know — whether he’s alive or dead.”

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