Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi has claimed that an armed man tried to target him during his recent visit to Punjab. Speaking in a video statement on Wednesday, the KP CM said the incident took place after he travelled from Sialkot to Wazirabad. According to him, his security team stopped a man in plain clothes who was carrying a pistol and handed the person over to local police.
Afridi alleged that the individual was sent with the clear intention of harming him. He also shared other complaints from his stay in the region. He said electricity was cut off at the house where he stayed in Sialkot and the generator was damaged. When he later moved to another residence belonging to Umar Dar, the same problems with power and the generator occurred again.
The Chief Minister had spent a busy day earlier in Lahore, visiting different areas as part of the ongoing Punjab street movement organised by his party. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has already announced plans for nationwide protests and a long march toward Islamabad on September 27, demanding the release of party founder Imran Khan.
This latest claim comes just two days after Afridi said he was taken away by authorities in Lahore and left by the roadside without any security. Punjab officials rejected that earlier statement. Information Minister Azma Bokhari said the KP CM had entered a police vehicle willingly and was never formally arrested.
Gujranwala police have strongly denied the new allegations about the man stopped in Wazirabad. In their official response, police stated that the person detained was actually a police constable who had been deployed for security duty. The officer showed his police card, yet he was still detained and subjected to violence in the presence of the Station House Officer of City Wazirabad police station. The SHO later intervened and rescued the constable. Police called it completely wrong to describe a security official as a potential killer.
The conflicting versions from Sohail Afridi and the local police have added fresh tension to the political atmosphere as the planned protests draw closer.
