Calgary boy reunited with mom after alleged abduction and two-year global chase
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CALGARY – A Calgary mother has been reunited with her son after a two-year search across the globe in what police call an elaborate parental child abduction.
Police allege Muhammad Zia-Ur Rahman, 62, developed a complex plan involving forged documents and new passports before he took his son, then five, from the home of his estranged, common-law wife on Nov. 29, 2023.
Rahman allegedly fled the country with his son four days later, evading Canadian and international police for more than two years. Then, he was spotted and captured at an airport in Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar.
Sgt. Scott Mizibrocky, with the Calgary Police Service, said Interpol called him early on the morning of Dec. 16 and told him they had found the pair. Mizibrocky got the boy’s mother on the phone at 6 a.m. and told her: “We have him.”
The mother reconnected with her son in Mauritius in the following days before returning back to Calgary. Rahman was extradited back to Calgary on Saturday.
The boy is “quite happy,” Mizibrocky said. “He’s playing with his siblings, he’s laughing, playing video games. Just what you expect from a seven-year-old.”
Police say Rahman was born in Pakistan and had been a practising doctor in Canada.
Mizibrocky said the mother learned that there was something wrong on Dec. 4 when the school told her the father had taken the son out of school.
That was the day after the pair had flown through Montreal to Turkey and cut off contact with the boy’s mother and his three other children. Mizibrocky said she contacted police a few days later, presumably waiting in hope of not having to involve law enforcement.
Police say his trail ran cold when it appeared the accused flew from Turkey to Russia. “Unfortunately, we did not get the co-operation we had expected from not only Turkey but from other countries,” Mizibrocky said.
Investigators believe the pair had hopped to countries from Asia to the South Pacific, including Russia, Azerbaijan and Vanuatu. Police also believe Rahman tried to create a new identity for his son.
The two were eventually spotted just over a week before Christmas at the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport in Mauritius.
“It was absolutely amazing, the support we received from Mauritius,” Mizibrocky said. “Without their co-operation, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Rahman is charged with one count of parental abduction and is to appear in court Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 20, 2026.