The shocking nature of SP Tahir Dawar's murder drew strong reactions in Pakistan, with the prime minister ordering an immediate inquiry.

Reports of discovery of SP Tahir Dawar's body, who went missing from the federal capital Islamabad, began surfacing on Nov 13 after it was found by locals in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

The career police officer was born on December 4, 1968, in North Waziristan's Khaddi village, which in the words of its residents is also known as "the village of martyrs".

Dawar's career as a law enforcement officer spanned over 23 years. He joined the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police force as an assistant sub inspector in 1995 and was initially posted in the province's Bannu district.

Between 2003 to 2005, he was posted to Morocco and Sudan as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

Dawar survived multiple terrorist attacks during his career as a police officer. In 2007, he suffered serious injuries in an encounter with militants in Bannu and had to be transported to Peshawar in a helicopter for medical treatment. He was serving as the Cantonment Police Station's station house officer at the time.

In 2009, he survived a suicide attack near his office in Bannu, where he was posted as the deputy superintendent of police.

From 2011 to 2013, Dawar served as an assistant director in the Federal Investigation Agency.

Following his stint at the FIA, Dawar rejoined KP police and in 2015 was posted as the deputy superintendent of police in Peshawar's Faqirabad area. He was serving as the acting sub divisional police officer of University Town when he was posted as the SP of rural Peshawar in August 2018.

On October 26 this year, Dawar went missing from the G-10/4 area of Islamabad. After his disappearance, Dawar's brother Ahmaduddin had told Dawn that the SP had arrived in the federal capital to attend a meeting.

“At 6:30pm, Tahir talked to his wife in Peshawar and told her that he was in Islamabad and may return if the meeting is over soon otherwise he would be coming back on Saturday. However, at 7:15pm his wife received a text message that Tahir was in Sarai Alamgir near Jhelum,” Ahmaduddin had said.

Rejecting the idea of a personal enmity, the brother said he was not aware about the meeting which Dawar had to attend.

On the other hand, the head of Peshawar city police said Dawar had been on a short leave, and had travelled to Islamabad in connection with personal matters.

Nothing was known about Dawar's whereabouts until Nov 13 when pictures of a body, said to be his, were shared on social media. The body in the photo had a letter written in Pashto placed on the chest. A day later, the Foreign Office confirmed that the body, found by locals in Nangarhar, was indeed of SP Dawar.

The body of the martyred policeman was handed to his family on Nov 15. He was laid to rest the same day in Hayatabad.

Dawar is survived by his wife and seven children.