Punjab’s Information Minister Azma Bokhari has pushed back against claims that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi was taken into police custody, insisting instead that he willingly climbed into a police van as part of what she termed a staged performance.
Talking to Media, Bokhari was blunt in her assessment. “No one arrested Sohail Afridi. He himself sat in the police vehicle. This was not an arrest, but a total drama,” she told.
Sohail Afridi Arrest Claim Called “Total Drama”
Bokhari alleged that the KP chief minister got into repeated verbal exchanges with police personnel, even as officers continued extending him standard protocol despite what she described as combative and disrespectful conduct on his part.
She went on to claim that Afridi stayed inside the van throughout the episode, appearing relaxed and smiling while refusing to step out. Bokhari also alleged that someone from his social media team was filming the entire scene as it unfolded.
According to her account, the van’s driver eventually moved the vehicle after noticing that a crowd nearby appeared ready to target it, though the van was brought to a stop again after covering a short distance.
Bokhari argued that the sequence of events contradicts any narrative of a genuine detention. “If the KP chief minister had been arrested, there would have been police officers inside the van,” she said, pointing to the absence of accompanying officers as proof of her claim.
PTI Accused of Staging Political Stunts
The Punjab minister didn’t stop at addressing the van incident. She broadened her criticism to target PTI leadership more generally, accusing the party of habitually manufacturing political spectacles for public attention.
Bokhari also noted that Afridi was currently in Lahore, a city she described as calm and secure, adding that he had been moving around freely there without any police escort.
She then issued a direct challenge to the KP chief minister. “Let him show this in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by walking one kilometre without police,” she remarked, suggesting that his freedom of movement in Lahore stood in contrast to the security situation in his own province.