A state of emergency took effect across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — the northwestern province bordering Afghanistan — on Sunday, at the same moment President Asif Ali Zardari moved to suspend the regional government there, which had been operating under the banner of Imran Khan's party. Khan himself remained in detention as his supporters assembled for a march toward Islamabad aimed at pressing for his release.
A statement released by the president's office indicated that Zardari's decision followed a formal recommendation put forward by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's Cabinet. Under these arrangements, the province falls within the remit of the governor, who acts as the federal government's appointed representative in the territory.
Within hours of Sharif's office forwarding a Cabinet recommendation for emergency rule — grounded in allegations that the provincial administration had stepped back from counterterrorism responsibilities — the removal of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's government from power passed without any publicly recorded protests, even as police detained a number of PTI supporters across the overnight hours. Extra officers and security personnel were positioned across the province and in Islamabad to keep the situation from escalating.
Steel and metal barriers set up by police across key roads in Islamabad over the past month have added considerable time to daily commutes, pushing residents of both the capital and neighbouring Rawalpindi onto longer alternative routes.
Zulfiquar Bukhari, serving as spokesperson for Khan, characterised the dissolution of the provincial government as an act that amounted, in effect, to a covert seizure of power. Bukhari, in a written statement, described the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administration as having held the only governing authority that Khan's party regarded as resting on a genuine popular vote from the February 2024 parliamentary elections — contests the party has disputed as fraudulent — and said that even that limited foothold had now been removed.
In the context of the latest dialogue between Khan's party and the federal government, Bukhari contended that those on the other side of the table had no genuine interest in arriving at any settlement. He stated that the government's team brought counterterrorism issues to the table, while those on Khan's side put the imprisoned leader's civil liberties at the centre of their case.
Facing multiple corruption-related charges that he and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party contest as politically driven, Khan has been held in custody since 2023 while remaining the foremost opposition figure to Sharif's government. Detention has done little to diminish the loyalty he retains across a wide cross-section of supporters, keeping him a recognisable force within Pakistan's divided political landscape.
Negotiations between PTI and the federal government over postponing the planned march concluded last week without an agreement. Two rounds of talks had passed without a breakthrough, Gohar Khan — the party's chairman — indicated in remarks made over the preceding days. The party put forward three demands on Khan's behalf: freedom from custody, a move to hospital care, and access for his relatives.
Officials in the Sharif administration have maintained that Khan remains in good health and continues to see family members in detention, while drawing a line against any visits being turned to political ends.
Sohail Afridi, serving as the province's chief minister, urged supporters in an address on Saturday to prepare for the planned march to Islamabad. A protest campaign attributed to Afridi got under way the previous week, with marches moving through a number of the province's districts. Requests from Sharif's administration for Afridi to delay the march had been ongoing for about a month, with officials pointing to a rise in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban across the northwest as the basis for their position.
The government has additionally levelled allegations that Khan's party holds sympathies toward the armed group operating under the name Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Afridi and a number of former Cabinet colleagues were taken into custody, according to a statement from Khan's party.
Faisal Karim Kundi assumed the powers of the provincial chief executive, bringing an end to the hold that Khan's party had maintained over the one province under its administration. The provincial assembly and Afridi's Cabinet were reported to have been placed under suspension as well.
Militant attacks across Pakistan have grown more frequent over recent years, with authorities and analysts attributing a considerable portion of that violence to the TTP — an organisation distinct from the Afghan Taliban yet closely aligned with it, the group that reclaimed control of neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistan's government has on multiple occasions pointed to Afghanistan's Taliban administration as a haven for TTP fighters, a position the Taliban authorities in Kabul have consistently rejected.
