Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has reached Peshawar after being “missing” for hours in the wake of the crackdown against PTI leadership over alleged violation of law about the party’s rally in Islamabad.
The development was confirmed by PTI’s member National Assembly (MNA) Shahid Khattak with sources saying that the CM was “busy in various meetings” in the federal capital after the party’s power show.
The former ruling party maintained that Gandapur held a long meeting with government officials over the law and order situation in the province and that he couldn’t be reached due to mobile phone jammers at the location of the said meeting.
The update comes after the Imran Khan-founded party had raised concerns about the possible arrest of the province’s chief executive as he couldn’t be contacted for over eight hours.
A day earlier, KP CM’s Adviser on Information Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif claimed that the federal government might have taken him into custody as he was not in contact since 6 pm Monday.
Expressing his doubts, the PTI leader urged the federal government to inform them about the whereabouts of the missing CM.
Saif’s concerns came as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched a fresh crackdown against the PTI leadership for violating the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, and arrested party Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan, lawmaker Sher Afzal Marwat from outside the Parliament House.
Other party leaders who have been arrested include Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman, Zubair Khan, Shoaib Shaheen, and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza
Police have filed cases against several leaders of the Imran-founded party under the newly-enacted law, at the Noon Village and Sangjani police stations.
At least 28 local leaders including Seemabia Tahir and Raja Basharat were also nominated in the cases.
The first information report (FIR) stated that charged PTI workers attacked police teams with batons and pelted them with stones when officers tried to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally’s route.
