The government placed a northern province under emergency rule, the president’s office said, following anti-government demonstrations by supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and militant violence in the northwest.
Thousands of Imran’s supporters have been marching in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to demand his release and airing anti-government criticism fuelled by harsh economic conditions.
Shortly after the measures were announced yesterday, a lawmaker from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Junaid Akbar, said on X that the province’s chief minister Sohail Afridi had been arrested along with the provincial president.
PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan called the emergency declaration “an extremely alarming and grave political mistake and an undemocratic measure”.
“The people will never accept such actions against their rights,” he posted on X.
The declaration, invoked under two articles of Pakistan’s constitution dealing with security, grants the federal government sweeping administrative powers over the province.
President Asif Ali Zardari signed the order after Cabinet recommendations “regarding the law and order situation, and the failure of negotiations with government delegations”, his office said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said earlier the decision had been taken over the “deteriorating law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ... from the provincial government’s deliberate indifference in the war against terrorism”.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a stronghold for Khan’s party, and the PTI-led government there will be sidelined under yesterday’s constitutional measures.
Intense security was deployed in the provincial capital of Peshawar yesterday, with large numbers of personnel seen around the chief minister’s residence, an AFP reporter said, while mobile phone networks in the area appeared to be disrupted.
“All the roads are blocked. We have a democratic government here, with members of the provincial and national assemblies being held hostage,” Abdur Rehman, 32, said in Peshawar.
“If they impose an emergency, it would amount to stealing the mandate of our Pashtun people. This should not happen,” he added, referring to the ethnicity of the majority of the population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
PTI supporters began “long march” demonstrations, led by the province’s chief minister, between towns and cities throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a week ago, after talks with the government broke down. — AFP
