Missing UCLA Student’s Family Hires Investigator

The family of missing UCLA student Ahmad Arain has hired a private investigator and created a website to help generate leads about his 3-week-old disappearance.

“We are just trying to stay optimistic, hoping that something will come up soon,” said Arain’s brother Sulaiman Arain, 19. “We are not thinking of giving up right now.”

University police are continuing their investigation, said UCLA spokesman Max Benavidez. He declined to elaborate.

Ahmad Arain, who was living with his family in Orange during summer break, disappeared July 23 while traveling by bus to an 11:30 a.m. appointment with his academic advisor at UCLA. His brother had dropped Arain off at an Anaheim bus stop, and the 20-year-old student was to take that bus and transfer to another line going to the campus.

Security tapes show Arain boarding a bus at a transfer station near the Harbor Freeway, then getting off an hour later at a stop in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles.

“It’s my best guess that since he got off [the transfer bus] at exactly 11:30 and his appointment with the counselor was at 11:30, that he just thought he had missed his appointment ... so he got off and was trying to take the next bus back,” Sulaiman Arain said.

Police are trying to find a woman who got off at the same West Hollywood stop in hopes that she might remember something, he said.

Anyone with information is asked to call UCLA police at (310) 825-1491 or go to www.FindAhmad.net.

A $10,000 reward is being offered for tips that lead to Arain’s safe return.