Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry confirmed on Monday that Sohail Afridi and some of his cabinet members had been placed in preventive custody. Speaking to Reuters, he said the detentions happened on Sunday, the day President Asif Ali Zardari proclaimed an emergency and governor's rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Geo News reported. The presidency cited the province's worsening security situation. Chaudhry described Afridi as the now-dysfunctional chief minister and said that anyone facing a case would be charged and tried, while the others would be released.
What the interior minister confirmed
The confirmation means KP ministers in police custody include the chief minister and some colleagues whose names were not given. "Yes, I can confirm that the chief minister and some of his cabinet members have been taken into preventive custody," Chaudhry told Reuters. He did not say where they were being held. In his account, preventive custody is a holding step: it does not, by itself, settle who will be prosecuted.
He added a condition. Where a case already exists, he said, the person will be charged and tried; where it does not, the person will be released. He placed the detentions on Sunday. Geo News published the remarks on Monday.
Emergency and governor's rule
Zardari signed the emergency and governor's rule on Sunday after formal advice from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The President Secretariat's Media Wing said he had approved the summary under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution, the articles cited for this emergency and for governor's rule. Geo News reported that the federal cabinet had recommended the move, that the prime minister had advised it, and that security institutions had submitted law-and-order reports.
Governor's rule, in this setting, is the constitutional step the presidency used after citing a worse security situation in KP. The elected chief minister was then described as dysfunctional.
Reaction from the PTI
PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan condemned the emergency and governor's rule, calling the decision a "grave political mistake". In a post on X, he said the step would weaken democratic rights and the province's say over its own affairs. Geo News carried that response. He was addressing the emergency proclamation.
The proclamation came a week after supporters of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan had rallied for days in the province. They meant to march to Islamabad to seek his release and medical treatment. The march started in Lakki Marwat on October 4, after government-opposition negotiations failed.
Geo News said the talks collapsed over counterterrorism cooperation in KP and over access to Khan, including a meeting with his personal doctor. The two sides accused each other while Afridi went on leading the march through the province.
What happens next
Chaudhry has left the immediate future to a case-by-case decision. People who have cases are to be tried; the rest are to be freed. He offered no timetable, and he did not say how long Sohail Afridi and his colleagues would stay in custody. Before those detentions, talks between the government and the opposition had already failed, and the presidency imposed emergency rule on security grounds.
