ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered an inquiry into the murder of Peshawar’s Rural Superintendent Police Tahir Khan Dawar on Thursday, asking State Minister for Interior Shehryar Afridi to oversee the probe.
Afghanistan is expected to hand over Dawar’s dead body to Pakistani authorities today.
Dawar was actively engaged in the fight against terrorism and survived two suicide attacks in Bannu. He was abducted by unknown individuals from Islamabad on October 26.
Dawar’s family received a text message from his mobile phone after the incident, claiming that he was safe and would soon return. However, they went to the police and lodged a report about his disappearance. (Photo courtesy: social media)
As the authorities were searching for him, a tortured body was found in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province this week that was thought to be SP Dawar’s.
There was also a handwritten note with the corpse, announcing that “the cop who arrested and killed several militants had met his fate.”
Purportedly scribbled by an activist of ‘Wilayat Khorasan’ – or the Afghanistan chapter of Daesh – the message also threatened other people from challenging the radical faction, saying that such individuals were bound to meet the same fate.
Pakistani police officials, especially those performing their duties in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, have frequently faced threats to their lives while fighting the war against religious militancy.
Some of them have also been targeted and killed in this struggle. Dawar is thought to be the latest victim in that series, though mystery continues to surround his abduction and assassination.
While KP Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said on Wednesday that the Afghan government had positively identified Dawar’s body, there has also been an inexplicable delay in its transfer to Pakistan.
Representatives of the KP Police have visited the Torkham crossing point on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border several times. However, Dawar’s body is still awaited in his home country.
