A senior police official told Dawn that eight people, including now-suspended Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi, PTI provincial president Junaid Akbar and Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, are in preventative custody. Dawn’s report was updated at 1:57pm on Monday.
What the police account says
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry told Reuters that Afridi and some cabinet members were taken into preventive custody on Sunday, after the provincial government was suspended. He said anyone with a case will be charged and tried, and the others will be released. Dawn said sources had earlier described Afridi and Akbar as under house arrest under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order. PTI had called the detentions arrests. No criminal charge against Afridi is named in Dawn’s report.
The emergency and governor’s rule are already in force. The federal government imposed them on Sunday under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution.
The court challenge
Dawn reported on Sunday that Tehreek-i-Tahafuz Ayin-i-Pakistan said it would challenge governor’s rule through the courts, assemblies and public forums. The Express Tribune reported on Monday that the PTI may take the emergency and governor’s rule to the Peshawar High Court, and that lawyers disagree on whether the courts can hear that case. Neither report says a petition has been filed.
What an earlier version got wrong
An earlier version of this article said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi was leading a PTI march toward Islamabad, and it treated the emergency as a claim posted on X. Dawn’s police account says he is in preventative custody. The emergency is the order imposed on Sunday, not an unverified post.
