Peshawar police constantly losing officers

The Peshawar police have suffered the most in terms of losing senior officers in militant attacks during the last six years. This has made posting in the city the most dangerous job for policemen. Not a single police officer of the rank of deputy inspector general (DIG) has been killed in any part of the country except Peshawar where an officer of the rank of inspector general, two DIGs, three superintendents of police (SPs) and a number of DSPs and station house officers (SHOs) have been killed since the last quarter of 2006. A number of other officers sustained different kind of wounds in attacks in Peshawar during this period. The city has lost two SPs during the last less than one month. The number of SPs killed in the city during the last eight months remains three with two SPs killed in suicide bombings and another beheaded after an attack in Matani. The latest killing was that of SP Investigation Hilal Haider in a suicide attack in Qissa Khwani on Wednesday. Six other people were killed along with him when a suicide bomber hit his vehicle near the Khan Raziq Police Station. Earlier, SP Rural Khurshid Khan was beheaded by militants in an attack on a security post in Matani last month. Five other cops were also killed in the attack. The first SP killed during the current year was Kalam Khan. Serving as SP of the Peshawar Rural circle, Kalam Khan was killed in a suicide attack in Pishtakhara in March. Claiming responsibility for the killing of Hilal Haider, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said that the two SPs (Rural) in Peshawar, Kalam Khan and Khurshid Khan, were killed for leading operations against them. The commandant of the Frontier Constabulary, an officer equal to the rank of inspector general of police, Safwat Ghayur, is so far the senior-most cop killed in attacks during the last few years. He was killed in a suicide attack soon after he came out of his office in Peshawar Cantonment and stopped at a traffic signal in August 2010. Safwat Ghayur, one of the most decorated and committed policemen had led several operations in Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsadda and Darra Adamkhel while heading the FC and earlier the Peshawar Police as capital city police officer. Another capital city police officer, Malik Mohammad Saad, was killed along with a number of cops and other people in a suicide attack near the Qasim Ali Khan Masjid in Dhaki Dalgaran in January 2007. Safwat Ghayur and Malik Saad are regarded as two of the best officers Pakistan Police has ever had. Their absence is still being felt all over Pakistan, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The first senior officer killed in Peshawar was DIG Bannu, Abid Ali, in November 2006. He was killed along with his driver by armed criminals when he was on way from Bannu to Peshawar. Among the junior officers killed in militant attacks during the last six years were DSP Khan Raziq, killed along with Malik Saad. Another DSP, Gulfat Hussain was killed in another suicide attack in a rally in Qissa Khwani in April 2010. DSP Saddar Abdul Rashid was killed along with other cops in a suicide attack in January 2011. Besides, a number of SHOs have also been killed in suicide attacks, roadside bombings, ambushes and encounters with militants and criminals since 2006.