SAN ANTONIO – The search for 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil continues after she vanished from a playground Monday afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The Islamic Center of San Antonio is also pleading for information that could lead to Lina Khil. They are offering a $75,000 reward for any credible information that could lead to the three year-old. The amount was made possible in part by donations pouring in from the Islam community.
“It’s to draw attention to this,” Michael Martin said. Martin is the mosque’s community outreach representative. “It’s a tragedy for the City of San Antonio, for any faith based community.”
Although administrators could not confirm if the Afghan refugee family prayed at the Northwest Side mosque, they said they are praying for their young girl.
“It’s a large (Muslim) community and typically Friday prayers are packed,” Martin said. “We have a lot of maqdes or mosques around town, so (the Khil family) could be going to any of those.”
Khil was last seen at Villas Del Cabo, an apartment complex on Fredericksburg Road near Wurzbach Road.
San Antonio Police and the FBI said they are using all their resources to track down the young girl’s footsteps, going door to door at the apartment complex and checking every vehicle that enters or leaves the property.
At the complex, parents are worried about the young girl’s whereabouts and holding their own kids extra close.
“The little girl that was here. She was playing right here when I came home from work,” Santana Jackson said. “She was in a red dress.”
Jackson is a mom of three and frequently saw her neighbor, Lina, playing outside.
“This little girl plays with my 3-year-old, (Cora),” Jackson said.
However, Jackson admits the mood has changed. Now, an empty playground and an eerily quiet apartment complex are proof Khil is still nowhere to be found.
“This makes me not want to have my kids come outside,” Jackson said.
Jackson’s daughter is too young to realize her friend never came home Monday night or why police knocked on every door in the complex, including theirs.
“(Police officers) wanted to look inside the house to see if she was there,” Jackson said. “The FBI came, (too).”
The FBI has also reached out to the Islamic Center of San Antonio.
“They’re making sure that if we hear (or) know of anything, we contact law enforcement, because we may hear it through the grapevine,” Martin said.
While they wait for more information on how a child vanished from a gated property. Jackson wants the apartment complex to put up security cameras throughout the area.
Anyone with information is asked to call SAPD’s Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660.
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More details emerge about missing 3-year-old Lina Khil
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