Shahid Khattak, a PTI member of the National Assembly, has asserted that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and several party leaders, including Junaid Akbar, have been arrested. He made the claim in a post on X, urging supporters to gather in Peshawar after an emergency was imposed in the province.
Khattak, who leads the party’s southern region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said he was in Peshawar and urged people to back jailed party founder Imran Khan. The arrests he described had not been independently confirmed in the reports reviewed for this story.
Khattak urges supporters to head to Peshawar
He asked people from the tribal districts and other parts of the province to travel toward the provincial capital, adding that he would join them wherever their numbers swelled. He also told residents of southern districts, including Karak, to block the national highway.
Emergency order deepens federal-provincial standoff
The calls followed President Asif Ali Zardari’s approval of an emergency in the province, which was tied to concerns over law and order. The move has sharpened tensions between the federal government and the PTI-led provincial administration.
Before the announcement, Chief Minister Afridi had said his party would resist any emergency or governor’s rule, which he called illegal. The party’s long march, launched to demand Imran Khan’s release, is still making its way through the province.
