On November 15, when we took the body of Superintendent of Police, Tahir Dawar, with public and official protocol from Jalalabad to Torkham, the convoy was stopped about one km from the crossing point on the Durand line. I and three colleagues walked to the crossing point where we met Mohsain Dawar, MP and senior member of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), accompanied by a Pakistani delegation. After a handshake and a hug with Mohsain Dawar, I shook hands with Sheharyar Afridi, Shaukat Yousafzai and Ajmal Wazir, who introduced themselves respectively as the Minister of State for Interior, Provincial Minister and Provincial spokesman. The crossing point was strictly controlled by the Afghan and Pakistan security forces and was closed for all and/or any type of traffic.

After introductions, I proclaimed our decision regarding Tahir Dawar’s corpse to Mohsain Dawar, that it should be received by the martyr’s family, Pashtun tribal elders, Manzoor Pashteen and his colleagues only. At this point, Mohsain Dawar asked if he could receive the body. Sheharyar Afridi said they had all come to receive the body. I insisted we would hand over the body only to the people I had mentioned. Ajmal Wazir tried to interrupt, saying they were all Pashtuns.

“You are forgetting that you are not representing Pashtuns, but being puppets and stooges of the Punjabi state”, I said. Sheharyar Afridi disagreed, “Martyr Tahir Dawar was our brave senior officer and his body shall be taken with all official protocol”. We agreed that he was a senior and brave officer and of course a self-respecting Pashtun, but since Pakistan had murdered him and thrown his body on this side of the Durand line to malign Afghanistan, we would not let the murderer (country) receive the smashed body of the beloved martyr. We insisted that Mohsain Dawar, deceased’s family, Manzoor Pashteen and Pashtun tribal elders receive the corpse or we would take it back to Jalalabad.

Mohsain Dawar understood the sensitivity of the matter and requested me to talk to him in private, but the Pakistani civil officials tried to assert by introducing a Waziristani Pashtun and saying Mohsain Dawar was also an elected MP like other civil officials. True, but Mohsain Dawar belongs to Tahir Dawar’s tribe and is a recognised Pashtun leader, and the man presented as a Waziristani Pashtun is unknown, this writer responded. Then, Mohsain Dawar and his colleagues left with us to an Afghan Police officer’s office saying, “Pashtuns on both sides of Durand line are Afghans, please make sure to reach a decision soon, so the cadaver is delivered to his family on time”.

Ajmal Wazir, provincial spokesperson, entered the room amidst this conversation and told Mohsain, while pointing towards the Pakistani side, “they are not ready either, they won’t accept the condition, so forget about handing over the body to Manzoor Pashteen and deceased’s family, instead, we the officials shall receive the body”. This writer objected and said that SP Dawar’s corpse was not for publicity; Wazir should go and get the deceased’s family, tribal elders and Manzoor to receive the body.

No agreement could be reached, despite an hour of conversation. Mohsain Dawar then took this writer aside and spoke about the state’s pressure on him, and urged me to hand over the body. I resisted, saying I could never devolve Tahir Dawar’s cadaver to his murderers.

Soon, some Momand tribal elders came and spoke to me, after which we agreed not be demand Manzoor Pashteen’s presence but would hand over the corpse to Pashtun tribal elders only, not Punjabi government stooges. Mohsain Dawar left to talk to the Pakistani delegation in their office. A revolutionary friend called and warned that Sheharyar Afridi, Minister of State for Interior, was insisting he would receive the body. However, Mohsain Dawar made it clear that the Pashtun tribal elders would never hand the cadaver over to Pakistani delegation.

Then he came with almost a dozen tribal elders came to receive the body. We separated them from the Pakistani officials and asked them to sign a document stating that they received the corpse; thereafter we called the Momand tribal elders to bring the body. As soon we handed over the body to Mohsain Dawar, the tribal elders started chanting LAR O BAR YAW AFGHAN “Pashtuns on both sides are Afghans”. The Pakistani officers got agitated and tried to take the coffin onto their shoulders. We immediately reacted and took the coffin back. Sheharyar Afridi then ordered the Pakistani forces to step back and finally we handed over the coffin over to our Pashtun brothers and bade farewell.

When they had taken the corpse into the tribal area on the other side of the Durand Line, a Pakistani officer put the Pakistani flag on the coffin, which was thrown away by Pashtun revolutionaries who placed the coffin in an ambulance for Peshawar; we left for Jalalabad.

The fight for Pashtun rights and freedom will be continued and will be achieved very soon, because history shows that a small revolutionary group has always defeated bigger usurpers and occupiers. Similarly, we will defeat and overthrow the Punjabis from the Pashtun land.

Now, I will present some facts for the Pakistani institutions to answer: Tahir Dawar was kidnaped from the green zone area G-sector of Islamabad; his family contacted the Pakistani institutions after he went missing. But, the police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) told them that Tahir Dawar was safe and sound. The senior advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister in a statement to the media said that Tahir Dawar was not abducted at all. The Minister of State for Interior, Sheharyar Afridi, said that it was a sensitive issue and he could not comment.

Now, Tahir Dawar’s abduction from the green zone of the capital, the Pakistani institutions jittery and controversial statements makes it clear that he was murdered by the Pakistani security establishment.

First, abduction by any group including Islamic State, Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is always for a demand; no demand was made and Tahir was found dead. So, Tahir was not kidnapped as stated by the Prime Minister’s advisor. Interestingly, IS has never claimed responsibility which they always do on their website in such cases.

Second, if the case is not of kidnapping but of murder, it does not make sense that IS or any group abducts a person from the most secure area, takes him all the way from Punjab to KPK and FATA and kills him on the other side of the Durand Line; rationally, he should have been killed in Islamabad.

Third, the MoS Interior did not open his mouth for 19 days, till the death body’s photos were viral on social media. He then found that Tahir Dawar was kidnaped from Islamabad and taken via Jhelam, Mianwali and Bannu to Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. But he did not even try to know that Bannu meets Khost province, not Nangarhar. Being from a tribal area, North Waziristan, I challenge if anyone except the Punjabi Army could travel and/or drive without strict checking and WATAN CARD through Punjabi army checkpoints every five kilometers. The vehicle carrying Tahir Dawar’s corpse on its entrance from Bannu into North Waziristan must have passed at least 20 army checkpoints before reaching the Durand Line.

Fourth, Tahir Dawar’s corpse was found right on the Durand Line, 100 metres from the Pakistani army checkpoint, and army footprints from where the corpse was found were traced back to the same checkpoint. Moreover, the deceased’s family has rejected the joint investigation by Pakistani institutions and asked for an international and/or UN investigation. Besides, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan, has recommended a joint investigation, but Pakistan has ignored the recommendation so far.

In conclusion, SP Tahir Dawar was one of the strongest supporters of PTM; he has composed many poems wailing the Punjabi state’s tyrannies on Pashtuns. Being a senior police officer, he had enough documents, evidence and testimony on how innocent Pashtuns are arrested, disappeared and killed, and he would have brought those documents forward at an appropriate time.

For a terrorist state like Pakistan, it was quite easy to kill Tahir Dawar in an accident and/or some other way, but they wanted to prove their fearlessness and warn other Pashtun officers who disagree with the Punjabi establishment’s policy. On one hand, the establishment murdered Tahir Dawar and on the other hand, tried to malign Afghanistan and create abhorrence between the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line. Fortunately, their insidious and evil deed has further united the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.

Interestingly, the ongoing Pakistani-state terrorism has forced the Pashtuns to change their loyalties to Pakistan and man-made religious extremism. They want change and national freedom from the Punjabi state. It is time for the US-led international community to not depend on the lies and deceits of Pakistan, and directly nurture strategic relationship with the Pashtuns and other suppressed nations in Pakistan to get rid of the terror sponsor State and its terrorism.

The author is a former central chairman of Pakhtun Students Federation and journalist based in Kabul; the views expressed are personal

http://thecharticle.in/what-happened-at-torkham-imtiaz-wazir/