Islamabad (Pakistan) (AFP) – Pakistan placed a northern province under emergency rule on Sunday, 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 Khan’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, 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.
An image issued by Zardari’s office showed his signature affirming the measures.
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 Sunday’s extraordinary constitutional measures.
A government spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment on the PTI provincial leader detentions.
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