DEO Kohistan Was Murdered By Office-Bearers

DEO Kohistan Was Murdered By Office-Bearers
PESHAWAR: In a new development, a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) examining the death of Nawab Ali, the District Education Officer (DEO) Kohistan, has revealed that it was not a case of suicide. Authorities are now treating it as murder.

The suspects in this case are office-bearers themselves. From a total of 11 suspects, 9 have been arrested while 2 are yet to be taken into custody. The latter include a member of the Provincial Assembly.

A post-mortem had revealed that the cause of death was not suicide. The week-long investigation by the JIT yielded a list of accused that includes an MPA from the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), Mufti Ubaidur Rehman, SDO Muhammad Iqbal, Senior Clerk Badal Khan, teacher Nawazul Haq, clerk Pasand Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, Abdul Wadood, Ubaidullah, Fakruddin and Zahir.

A seven-day remand from the court was obtained for those arrested.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was established by the provincial government to investigate the murder of Nawab Ali. District Police Officer (DPO) Mansehra Zebullah Khan, DPO Kolai Palas Iftikhar Khan and Superintendent of Police (SP) Mansehra Arif Javed were included in the committee.

Investigations by the JIT indicate that the DEO was murdered by officials from his office, with support from his political opponents. The issue over which he was killed was the appointment of class-IV employees. Having killed him, the office-bearers seem to have tried to pass it off as a case of suicide.

According to the JIT, the suspects in this murder wanted to appoint people of their choice on 17 vacant posts for class-IV employees and 4 posts for drivers. The suspects also forcibly obtained signatures from DEO Nawab Ali on the appointment letters at the residence of Aziz Khan, a former nazim, in Abbottabad on the 26th of September 2019 and threatened him with dire consequences if he disclosed it to anyone. In the course of this dispute, the DEO had been locked in his office for a whole day.

DEO Nawab Ali had eventually chosen to write out the details of what happened and tried to get this to the police. The envelope containing all these details is now with the police.

The case against the suspects has been registered on the complaint of the deceased DEO's brother.