Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday appointed Salahuddin Khan Mehsud as the new inspector general of police for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Thursday, said a notification.

Mehsud is a grade 21 officer of the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP).

The post of IGP was lying vacant after the recent retirement of Nair Khan Durrani on March 17.

Mehsud was the junior of three officers whose name was forwarded by the provincial government to the federal government.

The new inspector general joined the PSP in 1989 and was currently serving as AIG of special branch in the province. He had also served in CID, traffic and the frontier reserve police before his current assignment.

He was promoted to grade 21 in February.

Additional IGP Akhtar Ali Shah, who was briefly the acting IG, also congratulated Mehsud and wished him well.