Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered an inquiry into the death of a senior police officer who disappeared from Islamabad last month and whose body was found in Afghanistan.
The body of Tahir Dawar, a superintendent of police in the northwestern city of Peshawar, was recovered on Tuesday in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, nearly three weeks after he went missing.
Dawar’s body was found in a remote area of Nangarhar province of Afghanistan with a hand-written note from the so-called Islamic State (IS) claiming responsibility for his kidnapping and death.
Khan said that he had ordered authorities to carry out “an inquiry immediately”.
Pakistan’s foreign office said it had twice summoned the Afghan charge d’affaires to “seek clarity”.
Afghan officials were not immediately available for comment.
“His abduction, move to (Afghanistan), murder and follow up behaviour of (Afghan) authorities raise questions which indicate involvement or resources more than a terrorist organisation,” military spokesman Major General Asif Ghrafoor said on Twitter.
It was not immediately clear how he knew Dawar had been abducted and murdered.
The governor’s office in Nangarhar said it had delivered the body to tribal elders near the Pakistani border.
“The sad episode of retrieval of the body of SP Tahir Khan Dawar, following his brutal murder in Afghanistan two days ago, ended as an official delegation brought it back today,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement.
Dawar’s body was handed back to Pakistani authorities amid protests by ethnic Pashtuns, who accused the military of supporting religious extremists.
Rights activists have questioned how Dawar, who was visiting family in Islamabad from Peshawar on October 26, came to be in Afghanistan.
“The police cannot tell us anything and the entire state is silent about the investigation,” parliamentarian Mohsin Dawar (no relation) told Reuters.
Dozens of Pashtun activists staged protest demonstrations across the country demanding an investigation into the brutal murder.
Led by a young activist Manzoor Pashteen, supporters of the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM), accused Pakistan’s powerful military of being an accomplice to the killing.
“How can a senior officer of the police be kidnapped from the federal capital and taken all the way to Afghanistan, it’s a question mark on the performance of the law enforcement agencies,” said Shaukat Khan, a Pashtun activist in Peshawar.
The Pashtun Protection Movement rose to prominence after the killing of a young social media star in Karachi unleashed festering anger at extrajudicial murders.
It has been demanding action – including investigations into disappearances and extrajudicial killings – and an end to what it says is undue harassment of Pashtuns at security checkpoints.
Echoing accusations by Washington and Kabul, PTM activists say the military continues to allow extremists a safe haven from which to launch attacks in Afghanistan, while targeting insurgents that turn their guns on Pakistan.
For years, Pakistan has been accused by the US and others of using militants such as the Afghan Taliban as proxies, allowing them safe haven in the tribal areas.
Islamabad has repeatedly denied the claims.
The Afghan government had informed the Pakistan embassy in Kabul that the body was found by local people in Dur Baba village in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Khyber and Mohmand tribal districts.
It said the body was exhumed and handed over to the Pakistan consulate in Jalalabad.
The process took a lot longer than anticipated.
Dawar, who was serving as Rural Peshawar superintendent of police, hailed from North Waziristan.
He was promoted only a couple of months ago, though his service card found on his body said he was deputy superintendent of police.
Dawar had survived a number of attempts on his life, including two suicide attacks in Bannu in recent years.
As family and friends had been demanding his safe recovery, nothing was heard from any senior official of the KP government or the police force.
Minister of State for Interior Shahryar Afridi told the media that he cannot comment on it as it was a sensitive issue.
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