DUSHANBE, April 4, 2013, Asia-Plus – Tajik police have denied rumors that missing Dushanbe cousins have been found dead.

“The Interior Ministry (MoI) of Tajikistan officially denies rumors that missing girls – the 4.5-year-old Sabina Aralova and the 6-year-old Malika Aralova – were found dead and the law enforcement authorities allegedly conceal this information from the public deliberately in order to avoid panic among the population,” Mahmadullo Asadulloyev, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to him, the search operation for missing girls has not yielded any results.  However, the search operation is going on.

We will recall that the Ministry of Interior offers a reward for information about Malika Aralova and Sabina Aralova, who were reported missing on the evening of March 25.

The information about the missing girls may be provided via the Interior Ministry’s hotline 221-21-21 or by the following telephones: 223-23-31; 227-98-98; 221-08-30; and 227-00-57.

Malika and Sabina have been missing since March 25.  The girls reportedly disappeared from the yard where they were playing and parents of both girls reported their missing to the police station in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district on the same day.

Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimov has reportedly taken a search operation for the missing girls under his personal control.