Lahore: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi has accused authorities in Lahore of “abducting” him during political protests on Monday and later leaving him by the roadside without his security detail. The Punjab government has rejected his account, saying he entered a police vehicle voluntarily.
Afridi alleged that he was taken away by authorities before being released after pressure was exerted from elsewhere.
“We were abducted, and then, when they received pressure from somewhere, they threw me by the roadside without security and left,” the chief minister claimed.
He described the episode as a “conspiracy to abduct the chief minister of a province” and linked it to his earlier warnings about attempts to “divide the country”.
Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari disputed Afridi’s version of events. She shared footage which she said showed the chief minister walking towards a Punjab Police vehicle and getting inside voluntarily. In the video, Afridi can subsequently be seen declining to get out as a person asks him to “please leave the vehicle”.
Interestingly, posts from Afridi’s own official X account also stated that he had entered the police van himself. One post, published at around 9pm, said the chief minister “himself got on a Punjab Police van and reached a police station”. An earlier post had placed him alongside PTI workers at a protest on Lahore’s Mall Road.
A senior KP government official accompanying Afridi offered further context, saying the chief minister entered the police van in an effort to secure the release of detained party workers. According to the official, some workers were released but others remained inside, leading Afridi to refuse to leave the vehicle.
The official said police subsequently drove the van some distance away before removing the chief minister from it.
KP Information Minister Shafi Jan, however, alleged that Punjab Police had attempted to abduct Afridi by separating him from his security personnel and moving him away from the protest.
Jan claimed the chief minister was taken to a remote location and eventually left there without his security detail after “pressure mounted”. He accused the Punjab government of “police high-handedness” and described the treatment of an elected provincial chief minister as unconstitutional and undemocratic.
He further warned that such an incident risked fuelling confrontation between Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, arguing that any attempt to abduct an elected chief minister would amount to an attack on the foundations of the federation.