The total reward for information that helps bring missing San Antonio 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil home has been increased to $170,000.
On Thursday, the Islamic Center of San Antonio said it had increased to $120,000 its reward for information that leads directly to finding Lina. In December, the center offered a $100,000 reward. That was on top of a $50,000 reward offered by Crime Stoppers for information resulting in an arrest.
Lina, whose fourth birthday is Sunday, has been missing since Dec. 20, when she disappeared from a playground at the Villas del Cabo apartment complex, where her family lives. Police have been searching in the area around the complex, which is at 9400 Fredericksburg Road. Recently, police have searched around the town of Fredericksburg in response to several tips.
In January, divers from the FBI looked in creeks about 2 miles from her home.
Riaz Sardar Khil and volunteers search for his daughter, 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil, who disappeared on Dec. 20, 2021, from a playground at the Villas Del Cabo apartments at 9400 Fredericksburg Road, where her family lives.
Robin Jerstad /Contributor
Volunteer Pamela Allen looks under a bridge in early January as the search continued for 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil, who disappeared Dec. 20, 2021, from a playground at her family’s apartment.
Robin Jerstad /Contributor
Volunteers look under bridges in early January as the search continued for 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil, who disappeared on Dec. 20, 2021, from a playground at the Villas Del Cabo apartments on Fredericksburg Road, where her family lives.
Robin Jerstad /Contributor
Lina Sardar Khil, 3, has been missing since Dec. 20, 2021, when she disappeared from a playground at the Villas Del Cabo apartments on Fredericksburg Road, where her family lives.
Courtesy of the San Antonio Police Department
An FBI diver searches on Jan. 5 for missing 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil along a greenway near the corner of Babcock and Huebner roads, about 2 miles from where the girl went missing on Dec. 20, 2021.
Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News
Riaz Sardar Khil and volunteers search in early January for his daughter, 3-year-old Lina Sardar Khil, who disappeared on Dec. 20, 2021, from a playground at the Villas Del Cabo apartments on Fredericksburg Road, where her family lives.
Robin Jerstad /Contributor
Calling in the elite FBI diving team is indicative of the focus local law enforcement has placed on finding Lina and the level of community interest her case has garnered. During a recent prayer service that was attended by several public officials, Mayor Ron Nirenberg called Lina a “daughter of San Antonio.”
“So long as she is not here with us,” Nirenberg said, “the search will continue, and it will extend to the farthest reach that we need it to go.”
Volunteers have been searching for any sign of Lina, who turns 4 on Sunday, and say they won’t stop until they reunite the child with her family.
“I am going to hold onto my faith that we can bring this baby home,” Pamela Allen, a member of local advocacy group Eagle’s Flight, said after a search in January.
Law enforcement officials have been hesitant to classify Lina’s disappearance as an abduction, although an Amber Alert was issued after she disappeared.
On Dec. 20, Lina’s mother took her to a small playground outside the family’s apartment. Lina was running up and down some stairs with other children when she went past a pavilion and into the parking lot near a large tree. The apartment building blocked her mother’s line of sight, said a family friend who was interpreting for them, but she expected Lina to emerge from the other side as she had many times before. When Lina did not reappear, her mother went to find her.
And a community has been searching for Lina ever since.
Anyone with information on Lina’s case is asked to contact the San Antonio Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit at 210-207-7660 or Crime Stoppers at 210-224-7867.
taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @Taylor Pettaway