Hyder Shah was a member of the British Indian Army who in 1870 traveled as a secret agent through the princely states of Swat and Dir and Badakhshan.
He was recruited for a mission to explore Central Asia by a Major Pollock, the Commissioner of Peshawar, while he was in the services of Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Maunsell, commandant of the Sappers and Miners.
Hyder Shah's direct commander during the mission was Thomas George Montgomerie, who was in charge of recruiting and sending spies into Xinjiang, Bukhara, and Badakhshan.
Montgomerie ordered Hyder Shah to travel north from Peshawar through Swat and Dir to Chitral and then cross the Hindu Kush into Badakhshan.
But at Faizabad they learned poor weather would not permit passage over the Oxus and therefore the plans to travel to Bukhara and Kokand were scuttled.