By Muhammad Luqman
Body of Pakistani Police officer who went missing in the capital Islamabad on October 26 has been found in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar.
“Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul that a body was found by locals in Dur Baba district of Nangarhar Province, yesterday,”. Pakistan’s foreign office spokesman said on Wednesday.
The Afghan side has confirmed that the service card of Superintendent of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Tahir Khan Dawar has also been recovered with the body.
After its hand over to the local police, the body was brought to Mohmand Dara district and is being transferred to Jalalabad by the Afghan authorities. The body is yet to be received by the Consul General of Pakistan in Jalalabad. It would be subsequently transferred to Pakistan via Torkham border after completion of necessary formalities, the foreign office spokesman said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in close contact with the Afghan Embassy, while the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul is also in touch with the Afghan Foreign Ministry, since last night. Further details in this regard would be shared as and when received.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police had also confirmed that missing police officer SP Tahir Dawar had been killed, with out elaborating on cause and circumstances of his death.
Quoting SSP Operations Javed Iqbal, Geo News reported that the body of the missing police officer would be brought to Torkhan Border by Red Crescent Afghanistan.
A team of Pakistani police was dispatched to the Pak-Afghan border to receive the body but it returned back in the evening without receiving the body.
The pictures of the body, claimed to be of Tahir Dawar, with a handwritten note in Pashto from “Wilayat Khorasan (province of Khorasan) were in circulation on social media since Tuesday afternoon. The note stated the SP was killed to convey a message to people like him as he was involved in the arrest and murder of a number of militants.
SP Rural Peshawar Tahir Dawar went missing from the federal capital where he had gone on a short leave on October 26. None of the guards of the SP were accompanying him when he left for Islamabad.
Officials said he had dinner at his home in the federal capital and then went out alone at around 7pm. His cell phone was found switched off at around 8pm. There was no word about him since then.
As family and friends had been demanding his safe recovery for the last many days, nothing official was heard from any of the senior level official of the KP government or the force.
The family had set a deadline of five days while speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club a few days back. The family members and elders of his Dawar tribe spoke to the media along with two of Tahir Dawar’s young daughters. They were carrying pictures of their father in their hands and demanding his early return home.
Tahir Dawar’s colleagues and tribesmen from his tribe were angry with the government and the police for failing to make any progress in the recovery of their officer despite lapse of over two weeks. The performance of the police and the government, both federal and provincial, has been criticized for failing to recover its own officer.
“The murder of Tahir Dawar is a question mark on the performance of the federal and provincial governments and the police force. This speaks volumes about the non-seriousness of the government and the police,” said ANP’s provincial general secretary Sardar Hussain Babak in a statement after circulation of social media reports of his murder. He asked as to how the government and police will provide security to a common man if it cannot protect its own officer.
The missing SP belonged to North Waziristan and was promoted as acting SP a couple of months ago. He survived a number of attempts on his life, including two suicide attacks in Bannu in the past.
Known as a bold and vocal officer, Tahir Dawar had served as DSP in different areas of Peshawar and also worked in the FIA. Only the Pakistan Provincial Police Services Officers Association, family members and tribesmen publicly expressed concern over mysterious disappearance of Tahir Dawar. Nothing was heard from the KP Police and the KP and federal governments during the over two week period when he went missing.
