No headway yet in Dawar’s murder probe

PESHAWAR: No progress has been made in the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Mohammad Tahir Khan Dawar of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police even after the passage of one month.

Tahir Dawar, who was posted as Superintendent of Police (SP) Rural in Peshawar, was kidnapped on October 26, exactly a month ago.

There was a mysterious silence for many days after he went missing in Islamabad. His body was finally found across the border in Afghanistan on November 14. It took more than two days for his body to be brought from Afghanistan to Peshawar. He was later laid to rest in Peshawar’s Hayatabad locality.

Though Tahir Dawar was a senior member of the KP Police, no visible progress has been seen in investigation into his kidnapping and murder by his own force or by the Islamabad Police.

The Islamabad Police had lodged the case after he went missing from the federal capital. A joint investigation team had also been constituted by the Islamabad Police but it has yet to make a breakthrough in the case.

“We will send the Capital City Police Officer to Islamabad to get a briefing from the Islamabad Police regarding the case,” Inspector General of Police (IGP), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Salahuddin Khan Mahsud told The News.

The family of Tahir Dawar along with Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi and KP IGP recently met Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad. The latter offered condolences to the family members.

There was anger among the junior officers and the constabulary of the KP Police, especially the Capital City Police, after the murder of Tahir Dawar. They wanted to know as to who will protect the lower ranking officials if the government and the force cannot recover an officer of the rank of superintendent of police (SP).

The anger of the cops in KP is primarily over the way everyone kept silent after Tahir Dawar went missing. They believe the force always stood strong when senior officers like Safwat Ghayur, Malik Saad and Abid Ali were martyred but the case of Tahir Dawar was different from all other incidents as he was seized, murdered and his body thrown away in another country.

Not only the police force but the family of Tahir Dawar is also angry the way the case was handled. The family was unhappy with the police for not properly dealing with the kidnapping case of one of their senior officers.