Pakistan’s central government declared a state of emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday and suspended its provincial government, hours before supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan were set to begin a week-long march on Islamabad.
President Asif Ali Zardari signed the orders after what his office called the “failure of negotiations” between provincial officials and representatives sent from the capital. Police moved quickly to detain the top political leadership of Khan’s party, PTI, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, a close Khan ally. According to two anonymous police officials cited by India’s The Hindu, 278 PTI members were taken into custody. Police said some would be held only temporarily while others could face serious criminal charges.
The government says the crackdown is about security, not politics. Officials claim provincial leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were not doing enough to stop an Islamist insurgency spilling over from Afghanistan, namely Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group seeking to topple Pakistan’s government and install an Islamist caliphate on the Afghan Taliban model. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had asked PTI to postpone its planned march, citing that threat.
PTI isn’t buying it. Party officials and spokesmen called the move “an ambush on democracy” and “a coup disguised as an emergency,” arguing the real goal is silencing the opposition and stopping its supporters from reaching the capital.
The move lands against a backdrop of years of legal pressure on Khan himself. The 74-year-old was removed from the prime minister’s office in 2022 through a no-confidence vote and has sat in jail since 2023 facing a stack of corruption charges. His supporters call every one of those charges a political fabrication engineered by Sharif’s government to keep Khan from running again.
PTI supporters had been gathering in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for days ahead of the march, while authorities in Islamabad sealed off roads and prepared for what they treated as an impending siege. The emergency declaration landed just as marchers were preparing to leave the province.
Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said a new provincial governor will be installed for at least six months, or until the emergency is lifted. Schools across Khyber Kyber Pakhtunkhwa were shut down Monday, and The Hindu reported “major disruptions to Internet connectivity” in the province.
Provincial Governor Faisal Karim Kundi defended the order in a video message, claiming residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would welcome it because they want “peace, stability, development and prosperity rather than unrest and insecurity.” He called on people in the province to “refrain from violating the law, inciting violence or engaging in rioting.”
The dispute leaves Pakistanis caught between a government citing terrorism to justify mass arrests of its political opposition, and an opposition party accusing the state of using emergency powers to crush dissent and block a peaceful march before it could even begin.
