On Sunday, Salman Akram Raja, Secretary General of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), condemned what he called the alleged arrests of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and provincial assembly speaker Babar Saleem Swati. He said the speaker’s detention lacked a clear legal basis.
Speaking to reporters in Islamabad after a meeting of PTI and the joint opposition, Raja said Afridi had been held under the Maintenance of Public Order (3-MPO) law. He questioned, however, why the speaker had also been taken into custody, pointing out that the provincial assembly had not been dissolved.
Raja questions legal basis for speaker’s detention
Raja argued that detaining the speaker was unprecedented while the assembly still existed, and he asked why Swati had been arrested. He said PTI had been prepared to keep negotiations moving and had hoped for a positive decision that would let democratic governance continue, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that democracy was then present in only one province of Pakistan, and that the outcome he wanted did not materialise.
Khattak’s claims and emergency rule in the province
Raja’s comments followed claims by PTI MNA Shahid Khattak that Afridi and other party leaders, including Junaid Akbar, had been arrested after emergency was imposed in the province. Khattak, who heads PTI’s southern region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said in a post on X that he was in Peshawar. He urged supporters to gather in the city in support of jailed party founder Imran Khan.
The arrests and PTI’s response come amid escalating political tensions after the federal government decided to impose emergency measures and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
