ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s federal government on Sunday imposed a state of emergency and governor’s rule in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, effectively suspending the provincial government run by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, after President Asif Ali Zardari approved the cabinet’s recommendation, Al Jazeera and Dawn reported.
The emergency was invoked under Articles 232 and 234 of the constitution following a meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. His office said ministers had taken note of the “provincial government’s deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism.” Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the provincial governor would take charge with an advisory council, initially for six months, and the federal government named Muhammad Fakhr Alam Irfan as the province’s chief secretary, according to Dawn.
PTI leaders said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and the party’s provincial president, Junaid Akbar, had been taken into custody, and provincial Information Minister Shafi Jan urged people across the province to gather in the provincial capital, Peshawar, The Express Tribune reported. Police and federal authorities had not officially confirmed the arrests, Pakistani media said.
PTI spokesman Zulfikar Bukhari said the decision would only lead to “further bloodshed, instability and collateral damage,” Reuters reported, according to Al Jazeera, and PTI leader Barrister Gohar called it “an extremely concerning and serious political mistake.” Governor Faisal Karim Kundi said the move was aimed at “establishing peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.”
The emergency comes as the PTI presses a march on Islamabad, led by Afridi since Oct. 4, to demand Khan’s release. Khan has been in jail for more than three years but remains widely popular, and the government has blocked main routes into the capital with shipping containers and said it will not let the march enter the city.
Sources: Al Jazeera, Dawn, The Express Tribune
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