Shehbaz Sharif says letting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa burn would have been 'criminal' as lawyers call Monday strike

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has said his government had no choice but to impose an emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, arguing that standing aside would have meant watching the province slide into bloodshed.

“We were left with no other option,” Mr Sharif told reporters in Gujranwala on Saturday. “We understood that we could not simply remain silent and watch bloodshed unfold.” Doing nothing, he said, would have been criminal negligence.

His remarks, reported on Sunday morning, were the government’s most direct defence yet of the takeover, which came as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan’s party, prepared a long march on the capital.

Mr Sharif said his government had talked to the PTI for about 48 hours to head off the march, and that he had held several meetings with the province’s chief minister, Sohail Afridi, before the talks collapsed. An advisory council, which he described as neutral and largely non-political, will help run the province during the two-month interim arrangement, and he said he would attend its meetings.

He also tied the decision to security, saying the federal government would provide “all available resources and administrative facilities” to fight terrorism, and pointing to militancy and infiltration from Afghanistan since 2018.

Nawaz: it should have come sooner

His elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, president of the ruling PML-N, went further. Speaking in London, he said the emergency should have been imposed earlier. “Which country allows a chief minister to use government resources to attack the federal capital?” he asked.

Lawyers push back

In Peshawar, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council took the opposite view. Malik Imad Azam, chairman of its executive committee, called the emergency and governor’s rule “unconstitutional and undemocratic” and urged the federal government to avoid “adventurism” in the province.

Lawyers across the province will strike on Monday and stay away from courts. The council wants Mr Afridi and the provincial assembly speaker, Babar Saleem Swati, produced in court or released. It is also demanding the release of Ameer Ijaz, a senior lawyer and Insaf Lawyers Forum leader whom it says is being illegally held, and an end to what it calls illegal raids on lawyers’ homes.

The council’s vice-chairman, Asfandyar Khan, said its panel would file a petition against the takeover. The Peshawar High Court is expected to take it up on 20 October along with other challenges, and presidents of all district and tehsil bar associations will meet on 24 October to decide their next steps.