By Carlotta Mohamed
January 2015 was the last time Sameeah Muhammad of Jamaica saw her father, Ghulam Muhammad, who has been missing for the past three years.
Muhammad, who is now 77, was reported missing by the New York Police Department on New Year’s Day in 2015. He was last seen within the vicinity of Edgerton Boulevard and Grand Central Parkway in Queens within the confines of the 107th precinct.
According to Muhammad, the last night she saw her father, he came over to speak with her about pursuing medicine as a career. She then hopped in a cab to take her father home and has not seen him since that night.
“When we saw him in January 2015, it seemed like he was going to go for one of his trips abroad, so it was assumed that he was not at his house,” said Muhammad. “We were under the impression that he was out of the country as he usually was during harsh New York City summer and winter months. But he never returned to visit us, as he would do periodically after his trips.”
Muhammad said her parents emigrated from Pakistan to the United States in 1971, and her father was a hardworking pharmacist who used to travel frequently, sometimes to his native city of Lahore, Pakistan. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Muhammad’s sister that their father’s last known travel into the United States was in December 2014, but there is no record of his leaving the country with his U.S. passport since then.
Muhammad said her relatives in Pakistan are unsure if he has a Pakistani passport, and the Pakistani government does not generally keep records of people leaving the country, only entering.
“We need to make more of an effort to find him — it’s just been impossible,” said Muhammad. “We’ve spoken to family in Pakistan, they have not seen him at all…we’ve made a lot of phone calls and have done Internet searches as well.”
Muhammad said her family’s next possible attempt to locate Ghulam would be to hire a private investigator.
“We’ve been in constant contact with the missing person’s detective — that’s been ongoing,” said Muhammad. “He hasn’t found anything as of yet. We’ve been confused and saddened about his sudden disappearance.”
Reach reporter Carlotta Mohamed by e-mail at cmoha
