In the space of three days, Pakistan’s federal government has seized direct control of one of its four provinces, arrested its chief minister, and set up a courtroom showdown that could reshape the country’s federal bargain. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, run by Imran Khan’s PTI, is now governed by an 11-member council nobody voted for.
Sunday, October 11: the proclamation
The federal cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, met on Sunday morning and approved a recommendation advising President Asif Ali Zardari to invoke Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution — the provisions for a state of emergency and governor’s rule. Zardari signed off the same day.
The cabinet accused the PTI provincial government of what it called a “deliberate disengagement” from counterterrorism, alongside a collapse of law and order in the province. Sharif said the federal government could not let the provincial leadership derail economic stability or undermine security operations.
The takeover was administrative as well as constitutional. An 11-member technocratic KP Advisory Council was formed under Governor Faisal Karim Kundi. Dr Muhammad Fakhr Alam Irfan was installed as chief secretary, and senior officer Muhammad Yahya Akhunzada was transferred to Peshawar. The government also announced a separate administrative arrangement placing 12 of the province’s districts under direct federal control. The army was authorised to deploy in aid of civil power, shipping containers went up on Peshawar’s roads, and mobile and internet services were throttled in parts of the province.
PTI’s chairman, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, rejected the move as an unconstitutional assault on provincial autonomy and the public mandate. The party announced it would challenge the decision in court, in the assemblies and on the streets.
Before the hammer fell, the man at the centre of it had already drawn his line. Addressing a rally at Farooq-i-Azam Chowk in Charsadda, Chief Minister Sohail Afridi — elected in October 2025 on a platform centred on freeing the jailed Imran Khan — said he would not accept an imposed emergency. “I was asked to sign, but I refused,” he told the crowd, adding that the matter had gone “beyond seats and power” and that he was ready to sacrifice his office for the province’s mandate.
Monday, October 12: the takeover
Governor Kundi assumed direct executive control of the province and summoned the provincial Apex Committee to the Governor House in Peshawar, with senior civil and military officials told to attend. He named eradicating terrorism and corruption as his administration’s top priorities, and promised the container blockades would come down in phases and telecom services would be partially restored. Schools across the province stayed shut for the day.
On the ground, the crackdown was already under way. Police raided Swabi district to prevent a PTI rally that Afridi had been scheduled to address at Shewa Adda in Razaar tehsil. Party workers tried to shift the gathering to the Razaar Sports Complex; police fanned out across Shewa Adda to stop it.
Then came the detentions. PTI said Afridi, KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati and provincial party president Junaid Akbar, along with several cabinet members, had been taken into custody. Reports quoting federal officials later confirmed the arrests, though the government did not disclose Afridi’s location. Imran Khan’s son Kasim Khan weighed in from abroad, accusing Army Chief Asim Munir of invoking “terrorism to justify another military operation in Pashtun lands.”
The legal fight took shape the same day. Advocate Salman filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court challenging the emergency and governor’s rule, naming the president, the prime minister and the governor as respondents. The Lahore High Court Bar Association and the Lahore Bar Association decided to file a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court. The Islamabad High Court Bar Association condemned the move as an attack on the public mandate, and the Karachi Bar Association demanded the emergency be lifted, its president warning it was “the first step towards martial law.”
Tuesday, October 13: what happens today
This is the day both sides test their strength. Gohar Ali Khan has announced he will personally move the Peshawar High Court today to challenge the emergency, with a parliamentary strategy session planned alongside. Afridi had promised that the next phase of the PTI’s long march — the campaign demanding Imran Khan’s release from Adiala Jail — would be unveiled at the Swabi Interchange, and party convoys from Peshawar, Malakand and Kohat were expected to reach it today. Containers have already been moved to the Swabi Interchange and the Indus River bridge on the M-1 motorway, the crossing that links Punjab and KP, to block them.
Why this matters
The emergency raises a constitutional question Pakistan’s courts have never fully answered: can a province whose government and assembly are both functioning be dismissed for “disengaging” from counterterrorism? The bars associations are framing it as a precedent that could reach other provinces; the government is framing it as the only tool left against a province it says has stopped cooperating on security.
The deeper test is practical, not legal. Islamabad now owns KP’s security problem outright. If the terror surge the cabinet cited does not abate under federal control, the emergency will look like a power grab in retrospect. If it does, the government will say it was vindicated. Either way, the next ruling on the Peshawar High Court’s docket — and the crowd, or lack of one, at the Swabi Interchange — will tell Pakistan which version of events is winning.
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