A failure to protect

The war against militancy is not just fought on the battlefield. It plays out daily on the streets as brave police officers risk their lives to protect us at check posts and in the shadows as they try to break up militant cells. This war has taken its toll on the police, with law-enforcement officials bearing the brunt of the losses. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa SP Tahir Khan Dawar is the most recent example of a police officer who gave his life in service to the country after he was kidnapped and taken to Afghanistan, where he was reportedly tortured and killed by militants. Dawar had previously been targeted twice in suicide attacks, showing how militants have prioritised the targeting of police officers.

The question now is what the state did to protect Dawar and then try to recover him when he was kidnapped. The answer, it appears, is not much. Dawar was on leave in Islamabad when he went missing from a residential area of the capital city on October 26. Despite being one of the most surveillance-heavy cities in the country, CCTV cameras did not pick up his kidnapping or his removal from Islamabad by militants. Dawar’s kidnappers were apparently able to cross the border without being apprehended and the first the government knew about his killing is when images of his mutilated body were posted on the internet.

Three weeks elapsed between the time Dawar was kidnapped and his killing was confirmed. Multiple protests were held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa demanding answers but the government had nothing to say. While the public is not privy to any secret information the government may have had, when a figure as prominent as Dawar goes missing it is the state’s responsibility to keep us informed. This looks to be an intelligence failure on all levels, from the failure to protect Dawar despite the threats against him to the failure to recover him after he was kidnapped. It will also lead to consequences in Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan.

We have long complained about the lack of security at the border and the fact that the TTP has been given free rein to operate in Afghanistan. Now there is a dispute between the two governments. Pakistan has lodged an official complaint and will surely be protesting more in the coming days. Already, ISPR DG Major General Asif Ghafoor has said the way he was kidnapped and moved to Afghanistan indicates that this was the work of an entity other than a terrorist group. The implication seems to point to the Afghans being involved. Even this is a failure of the state as it has been unable to work with Afghanistan to contain the militant threat. Hundreds of police officers have sacrificed their lives to keep us safe but for their work to have meaning they need the full backing of an engaged state that is equally concerned with defeating the militant threat.