Pakistan suspends Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, detains PTI leaders, including chief minister Afridi
Emergency rule was declared on Sunday, 11 October, with chief minister Sohail Afridi and some cabinet members taken into custody, according to the federal government. The PTI, the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, says it will challenge the move in court.
Emergency rule and suspension
On 11 October, President Asif Ali Zardari declared a state of emergency and suspended the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province led by Khan aide Sohail Afridi. The federal government said the provincial government had failed to tackle Islamist militancy in the province, which borders Afghanistan. An extraordinary federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif examined the security situation, according to the prime minister's office. Governor Faisal Karim Kundi has taken over the province and set up a technocratic advisory council of eleven members. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the suspension would last at least six months, with no timetable for lifting the emergency. La Vanguardia noted that emergency powers had not been invoked in the province since 1999.
Arrests across the province
The chief minister and some cabinet members were detained at his house in Peshawar on 11 October, where police, paramilitary forces and shipping containers cordoned off the area, Reuters reported. Europa Press, citing a senior police official who spoke to Dawn, put the number placed in preventive custody at eight, including Afridi and provincial assembly speaker Babar Salem Suati. Two police officials who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said 278 PTI members had been arrested in different parts of the province. Khan's three sisters were also detained before the planned march, Reuters said. Talal Chaudhry, minister of state for interior, confirmed the custody to Reuters on 12 October.
- President Zardari declares emergency and suspends the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government
- Chief minister and some cabinet members taken into preventive custody at his house
- AFP police sources report 278 PTI members arrested across the province
- PTI plans to file a legal challenge to the emergency in court
Yes, I can confirm that the chief minister and some of his cabinet members have been taken into preventive custody. If any of them have any cases to be tried against them, they will be charged and tried, but the others will be released.
The government's case
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the government had solid evidence that the provincial administration worked hand in glove with the Pakistani Taliban. He accused Afridi of facilitating the TTP, a separate group that is a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, and alleged that Khan's supporters travelled along the Afghan border in the week of 5 October with militant help. Islamabad often accuses Kabul of sheltering TTP militants, an allegation the Afghan Taliban government denies. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi argued in Peshawar on 12 October that federal rule was needed to fight terrorism in the province, which shares a porous border with Afghanistan. Speaking at a news conference, Attaullah Tarar put it bluntly:
You cannot have a provincial government in the country which sympathizes with the terrorists, or which supports terrorists.
PTI response and legal challenge
PTI rejected the allegations and said the move was meant to deter its supporters from marching on Islamabad. Its central information secretary, Waqas Akram, said the party would challenge the emergency laws in court on Tuesday, 13 October, with a petition drafted by a legal committee led by secretary general Salman Akram Raja. Akram did not say whether the petition would go to the Supreme Court or the Federal Constitutional Court. Talks in the week of 5 October between PTI and the federal government ended without agreement, and the law minister said federal officials had not asked PTI to cancel its march on Islamabad. Akram told Al Jazeera that the march was not over.
The long march has not ended.
Streets and schools
Daily life continued largely as normal on 12 October, with busy roads and open markets, the Independent reported, and no protests by the party were reported in Islamabad. Authorities closed schools as a precaution, while AFP reported that schools remained shut. Demonstrations were limited to scattered groups, and in Bara, in the western Khyber district, police fired shots in the air to disperse a few dozen protesters and five people were arrested, AFP reported. Shipping containers and barbed wire still blocked roads to the administrative zone in Peshawar. Reuters noted that the party's last large protest, two years ago, ended in deadly clashes with security forces, and that Khan's 2023 arrest sparked nationwide riots. Khan, 74, has been in jail for more than three years.
