By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has accused the opposition-run government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of spending its time plotting the release of the jailed Imran Khan instead of governing, as the former prime minister’s supporters marched towards the capital and federal officials weighed emergency measures in the province.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad on Saturday, Tarar said the provincial government led by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had neglected health, education, development and security during more than 13 years in power.
“The hours that should have been spent on governance have instead been spent plotting to secure the release of a prisoner,” he said. Of the provincial chief minister, Sohail Afridi, he said: “If you do the calculations, you will find that Sohail Afridi has devoted virtually zero hours to governance.”
He said the provincial government had received Rs700 billion under the National Finance Commission award and spent the money on protests rather than on upgrading the Counter Terrorism Department, building forensic laboratories or installing Safe City cameras in the merged tribal districts and at entry and exit points.
“You don’t even give half an hour to discuss terrorism in the province, but you organise six-hour meetings to spread turmoil and vandalism,” he said. He claimed the party had “trapped” people in poverty, disease and ignorance to press for Khan’s release.
Tarar cited attacks in Kohat, Hangu and Dera Ismail Khan, including an incident at the Aman Mela checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan in which police personnel and civilians, among them a child, were killed. He said terrorists had been allowed back into areas that had been cleared in earlier military operations, including Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad.
He compared the provincial record with that of the federal government, pointing to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s opening of an IT park and a fuel subsidy scheme that he said had reached 10 million people.
Ikhtiar Wali Khan, the prime minister’s coordinator on information for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa affairs, said 18 of the province’s 34 universities were on the verge of bankruptcy and that many were without vice chancellors. He also made a series of other claims:
- Money meant for the former tribal areas had been diverted to other constituencies and political activities.
- Public funds had paid thousands of social media influencers.
- Hospitals had been charged “fees for inclusion” on the Sehat Card panel.
- A provincial forests minister had links to the timber mafia.
Wali also said the PTI’s agenda was aligned with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. “These are your military wings,” he said, again without substantiating the claim. He called the party “Fitna Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”.
PTI rejects allegations
The PTI’s central information secretary, Sheikh Waqas Akram, rejected the allegations in a statement later in the day. He said the party neither supported armed struggle nor believed in the politics of violence and sabotage. He dismissed the ministers as “so-called ministers and political orphans”, and described their regular press conferences as the work of a “liar-brigade”.
Akram challenged the government to prove its security policies in Balochistan, where he claimed large areas had become no-go zones, before applying them elsewhere. He called the claim that 11 districts of the province were no-go areas “exaggerated and a possible pretext for imposing emergency measures”. He said the party would resist any decision that compromised the constitutional rights of residents of the province and its merged districts.
The PTI chairman, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, met Afridi in Peshawar. He said afterwards that governor’s rule or an emergency was not the right solution, though he said the party would welcome either if it could eradicate those he called “enemies of the state”. He said it would “further deteriorate the situation”. The disagreement, he said, was over method, not over the goal of ending terrorism.
The remarks came on the seventh day of the PTI’s long march. The march began after talks with the government broke down, having been postponed from 27 September to 4 October to allow negotiations. The talks collapsed over counterterrorism policy, among other issues. Interior minister Mohsin Naqvi blamed Afridi, saying he had repeatedly changed an agreed draft.
The convoy reached Mardan on Saturday. Afridi told supporters to gather in Swabi, directing KP lawmakers to bring 1,000 workers each and those from other provinces 500 each, and urging participants to prepare for tear gas.
Federal officials have meanwhile stepped up warnings. Reports say the Centre has prepared for an emergency in 12 districts, made up of eight merged tribal districts and four settled ones. The PTI says the plan would violate the 18th Amendment. The parliamentary affairs minister, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, has said any emergency decision would not be linked to the march itself.
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