PESHAWAR: The kidnapping and murder of police officer Muhammad Tahir Khan Dawar echoed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Thursday as the Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak sought a debate on the issue.
Sardar Hussain Babak, through an adjournment motion, asked for debate on the murder of Superintendent of Police (SP), Rural Peshawar, Tahir Dawar, who was kidnapped in Islamabad in October while his dead body was recovered two weeks later in Afghanistan. The House accepted the motion for debate to be held probably on Monday.
In his motion, the ANP lawmaker from Buner said the kidnapping of a serving police officer from the federal capital and then recovery of his body from the neighbouring country was a failure of the government.
He posed a question as to how a police officer was kidnapped in the presence of security and intelligence agencies and shifted to Afghanistan via the land route. “The government should clarify its position and bring to the fore the details about the kidnapping, identify those involved in it and the steps taken so far against those responsible,” he maintained.
He called for in-camera briefing in view of the minister of state for interior’s statement that it was a sensitive issue. Demanding that the government should admit its failure in this case, he said the PTI government in KP silence over Tahir Dawar’s brutal murder was ironic and astonishing.
It was astonishing that suo moto action is being taken on the transfer of a police officer from Punjab but there is silence over even the kidnapping and murder of a police officer from KP, he said.
“Why the intelligence agencies fail to provide protection to Pakhtuns, and how a police officer kidnapped from the federal capital was shifted to Afghanistan despite the fact that billions of rupees were spent on fencing the border,” he argued.
He also expressed concern over the way the relatives of Shaheed Tahir Dawar were called to the Prime Minister House for offering fateha instead of the premier visiting the family.
During the question hour earlier, the House was told that in the current ADP no allocation has been made for the construction of new schools but the funds would be spent on completion of the ongoing schemes.
On a question by Inayatullah Khan of the Jamaat-e-Islami from Upper Dir, the chief minister’s advisor on education Ziaullah Bangash said that no project of construction of any new school was included in the ADP as the government wanted to complete the work on old and under-construction school buildings.
To another question by Inayatullah, it was stated that 78 projects of universities, campuses and colleges have been completed from 2013 to 2018 at a cost of Rs18,154.142 million and 45 more projects worth Rs37,687.099 million were ongoing.
Though the mover was not satisfied with the answer as he said detailed figures and project-wise cost was not provided, Law Minister Sultan Muhammad assured him of providing the break-up.
Ziaullah Bangash, the advisor to chief minister on education, gave an assurance of reopening the Bacha Khan Model School at Munda, in Lower Dir district. To a question by ANP’s MPA Bahadur Khan, the minister said the vehicles and other assets were secure in the school building and efforts were underway to make it functional but they were waiting for a written order of the court.