PNN: After a three-day Lahore trip to launch PTI’s street movement, KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi announced Thursday that he will visit Karachi on January 9.
“Friday, January 9!” the chief minister said on social media platform X. “Karachi, Sindh, are you ready?”
Afridi said he would be coming to Karachi “bearing Imran Khan’s message”, adding that he would be meeting “all friends of the party”.
Afridi had previously announced that Karachi was his next destination for galvanising party supporters.
During his visit to Lahore, the KP CM had attempted to deliver a speech to supporters at Liberty Chowk but was unable to do so as a heavy contingent of police had blocked all roads leading to the area by setting up pickets.
He had also addressed PTI lawmakers at the Punjab Assembly, a visit that was marred by altercations between members of his entourage and security officials, while several heated exchanges between PTI leaders and journalists were also witnessed.
He was also barred from visiting the cantonment to meet party leaders, as well as the food street that had been shut down ahead of his visit. He also went to Zaman Park amid heavy police deployment, while the detention of party supporters during the tour was also reported.
On Monday, he wrote to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz to complain about the treatment meted out to him during his visit. He maintained that the Punjab government’s adoption of an extraordinary and excessive security posture — including sweeping detentions and visible enforcement theatrics — was “a message of intimidation rather than cooperation”.
He complained that “such measures were neither proportionate nor warranted and conveyed an intent that went well beyond legitimate security considerations”.
The KP CM was of the view that, “taken together — protocol degradation, excessive policing optics, and synchronised digital vilification — the pattern is too consistent to be dismissed as coincidental”. He termed the conduct “beneath the status of a provincial government” and stressed that it damaged the “collective credibility of federating units”.
Separately, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan said the KP CM’s visit to the provincial assembly would be investigated by the law enforcement agencies in light of the CCTV footage and the initial inquiry report.