SP Tahir Dawar’s kidnapping & murder

PESHAWAR: Criticising the government for failing to make any headway in the investigation of the murder of slain police officer Mohammad Tahir Dawar, his family members have reiterated the demand seeking formation of an international probe commission to investigate the high-profile case.

Talking to The News, late Tahir Dawar’s daughter Nadia Tahir, said almost four months had passed since the murder of her father, but no tangible progress could be made in the investigation.

She recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised her brother Amjad Tahir and her uncle Ahmaduddin Dawar that the government would form the joint investigation team (JIT) within three days to solve the case.

“It has been more than three months but the JIT could not be formed to probe the murder,” she lamented.

About the composition of the JIT, she said that it was supposed to have five members, including three from the opposition parties. She asserted that the government had also promised that Member National Assembly Mohsin Dawar hailing from North Waziristan would also be co-opted in the JIT.

Nadia Tahir recalled that the government had announced Rs70 million as compensation for her family, but the promise is yet to be materialised.

However, she said the Pakistan Army paid Rs25 million compensation to her family.

Ahmaduddin Dawar said he had asked the prime minister to probe the kidnapping and murder of his brother Tahir Dawar through an international commission, but he refused to do so by arguing that a UN commission had probed the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and its performance was unsatisfactory.

He said the prime minister announced that a JIT would probe the murder.

Ahmaduddin Dawar claimed that the prime minister promised to get the murder probed by the UN commission if the family was not satisfied with the JIT report.

Tahir Dawar, who was serving as an SP in Peshawar, was kidnapped in mysterious circumstances in Islamabad on October 26, last year and his body was recovered in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province after two weeks.

The body was later brought to Pakistan and buried in the Hayatabad graveyard in Peshawar.