Feat of bravery: Safwat Ghayyur’s valour lives on

PESHAWAR: A man of discipline and true commitment, slain Frontier Constabulary (FC) Commandant Safwat Ghayyur was known for sleeping with his uniform and boots on. Throughout his career, he had displayed tremendous bravery in combating militancy and was always prepared to deal with any eventualities.

“He slept for just six hours in the night when he was serving as the capital city police officer,” a policeman told The Express Tribune. “People would laugh at this habit. However, I think he did not want to waste time changing clothes in case of an emergency.”

According to the official, Ghayyur always made an effort to cooperate with journalists.

“He was not interested in media coverage,” he said. “But he would always answer phone calls from reporters to provide them with information.”

Ghayyur  was one of the two Police Service of Pakistan officers in the entire province who had been trained as commandos.

The FC commandant was always on the forefront during operations in FR Peshawar. More often than not, he would use FC forces during the offensive – a tactic which had not been used for a very long time.

“Whenever militants attacked a police or an FC post, he conducted extensive operations in Khyber Agency and other parts of the tribal areas,” another police official told The Express Tribune. “Unfortunately, it was in one of these operations, due to which Ghayyur  lost his life. Nevertheless, he fought till the very end and never shied away from performing his duty.”

When the situation in Swat spiralled out of control, Ghayyur  sent his entire Peshawar reserve force to assist troops. Lauding his valour, the policeman added Ghayyur  never travelled with security guards to protect him.

“He was in his own car with a driver when he was targeted in a suicide attack,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2015.