Opposition leaders ask constitutional court to release detained KP chief minister
The joint petition names eight provincial assembly members and six MNAs, while a separate PTI filing seeks production of the KP assembly speaker.
ISLAMABAD: The opposition leaders in both Houses of Parliament asked the Federal Constitutional Court on Saturday to order the immediate release of Sohail Afridi, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister who has not been seen since the Centre imposed governor's rule and emergency in the province on Oct 11.
Achakzai and Abbas, the opposition leaders in the National Assembly and the Senate, filed the petition jointly, Dawn reported. The petition also seeks the release of eight other elected members of the provincial assembly and six members of the National Assembly. Dawn described Afridi as the non-functional chief minister.
A day after governor's rule and emergency were imposed, a federal minister confirmed that Afridi and some of his cabinet members were in preventive custody.
A separate petition reached the FCC on Thursday from Shandana Gulzar, a PTI member of the National Assembly. She asked the court to order the release of Afridi, the provincial assembly speaker, Swati, and other party workers, and for Afridi, Swati, PTI's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president Junaid Akbar and other workers to be produced before it.
The respondents she named were the federal secretaries of interior and defence, the provincial chief secretary, the secretary of the Home and Tribal Affairs Department, the provincial inspector general of police, the Peshawar capital city police officer, the Peshawar deputy commissioner and the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency.
PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Khan also went to the FCC on Thursday, applying to be impleaded in a case about an order restraining the Peshawar High Court from hearing cases on the detention of PTI activists.
In the application, he stated that he is a petitioner before the high court in a case in which he challenged the imposition of governor's rule and the proclamation of emergency. He asked the FCC to allow his impleadment so that he can argue as an intervenor, present his point of view or file a written statement in the pending matter, according to Daily Times.
Neither petition gives an account of where Afridi or the detained lawmakers are being held.
How the reports differ
Dawn led with the joint petition by the opposition leaders in both Houses, filed on Saturday, and gave the numbers of detained lawmakers involved: eight provincial assembly members and six MNAs. Daily Times carried a different petition, filed on Thursday by PTI MNA Shandana Gulzar, naming KP assembly speaker Swati, PTI's provincial president Junaid Akbar, and listing the federal and provincial officials made respondents. Daily Times also reported Barrister Gohar Khan's application to be impleaded in the case on the Peshawar High Court's hearings, which Dawn did not mention. Neither outlet carried the other's petition.
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