The soldier from Miramshah: Friends remember police officer Tahir Dawar

There he stood, tall and expressionless, on a nippy morning in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, blocking the entrance of the police training centre.

“Why are you here?” he asked, sizing me up.

“I am the new assistant sub-inspector, here for -,” I replied before he cut me off. “Pick these up and follow me,” he interjected, curtly, pointing to some manuals lying on the floor.

I was nervous. “Is he my supervisor?” I thought, walking through the corridor behind him. He seems strict. As we reached the barracks, the man turned around. Suddenly, his frown relaxed. He smiled and then, to my surprise, reached over to hug me. “I am Tahir Dawar,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “Also, a new recruit.”

That is how Shaukat Ali, a superintendent police, remembers the first time he met Dawar, in 1995. Thereafter, they became the closest of friends.

Dawar was kidnapped in October from Islamabad. Few in Pakistan knew the senior officer was missing until his killing was reported two weeks later from Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

Those who knew him during his 23-years police service remember him as a stellar officer who stood out from the rest. Pakistan has lost a hero, say his loved ones and colleagues.

Born in North Waziristan, the young policeman, soon after graduating from the police academy, was posted in the province’s Bannu district as a station house officer and later a sub-inspector.

During his stint in the district, he survived multiple terrorist attacks. In 2007, militants opened fire on his vehicle, seriously injuring him. Another suicide attack targeted him in 2009.

If it wasn’t for Dawar, and other officers like him, terrorists would have overrun Bannu, D.I. Khan and Peshawar, says Javed Iqbal, Senior Superintendent of Police Operations in Peshawar. “Very few people know that about him. He was a wall that the militants could not topple.”

For the law enforcement officers, his commitment to his work was unparalleled. In 2007, after being shot, Dawar was rushed to a hospital in Peshawar. Concerned about his friend, Shafi Ullah Gandapur, a superintendent in Peshawar, began frantically dialling his number. He was not expecting to get through. But he did. Dawar told him that the doctors were operating on his leg as he spoke. “I was shocked,” recalls Gandapur, “Why was he attending calls?” The officer began to chuckle, “I am so loved that the phone won't stop ringing, which is why the doctors are allowing me to take calls.”

After Bannu, Dawar completed a short term at the Federal Investigation Agency before returning to the police service. He was serving as an SP in Peshawar before his abduction.

Despite the rise in ranks, Dawar was aware of the poverty in his hometown and always came to the aid of those less fortunate.

“He wasn’t just a stellar police officer, he was a one of a kind human being,” Ahmed ud Din Dawar, his younger brother, tells Geo.tv. Supporting his own wife, five daughters and two sons, Dawar had also helped raise 30 other children in his area and provided financial support to three widows.

Dawar returned to North Waziristan after the Pakistan Army cleared the area of terrorists. He found his village had been destroyed by the terrorists. There were no schools, no buildings, no shops. Even his family home did not survive. The officer then took it upon himself to rebuild a mosque in the Miramshah area. When he ran out of funds, he moved door-to-door asking for finances to complete the project.

“We used to call him the ‘soldier from Miramshah’,” adds Iqbal, “And now that he is gone, no one can replace him.”