The Sohail Afridi helicopter ride to Lakki Marwat would have been an ordinary piece of provincial travel on any other day. It became a legal question because the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister landed at Gandi Chowk to lead the first phase of the PTI long march, and because the Islamabad High Court had already addressed this exact situation.
The court’s short order was not vague. It told provincial governments to make sure government resources were not used for any march, procession or rally. It went further, saying official vehicles, machinery and other government equipment must not be used to facilitate such an event. It also said that anyone holding public office who acted against these instructions should be deemed to have violated the Constitution.
Set against that language, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s objection is not frivolous. He said the chief minister may well have been in Lakki Marwat on official business, perhaps tied to security and counterterrorism, but that a chief minister cannot use a chartered aircraft to serve the PTI’s political agenda. That is close to the test the court laid down. The order does not ask whether a trip had some official justification. It asks whether state resources helped a march.
This is where the chief minister’s position becomes difficult. A journey can serve two purposes at once, but the destination and timing here point in one direction. He arrived to lead the long march, and he did so hours after talks to avert it had collapsed. If the aircraft was a government asset, or was paid for with public money, a claim that it was only for security work will need documents to support it, such as an official itinerary, meetings held and a record of who authorised the flight. Assertions alone will not carry it.
There is also the matter of the undertaking given in court. The KP police chief swore that illegal activity would be prevented, yet the provincial advocate general said he would not own that undertaking. That gap between the province’s police and its law officer does little to reassure anyone that the court’s directions are being taken seriously. Any finding of contempt or constitutional breach would need a fresh application and an examination of the facts. The federal government is also not a neutral party. It has its own reasons to portray the chief minister’s conduct in the worst light, and Naqvi’s own concession about possible official duties shows the picture is not clear-cut.
My view is that the burden now sits with the provincial government. The court set a clear rule, the political context of the flight is plain, and the only thing missing is proof of what the aircraft was actually used for. If Peshawar can show an official purpose and clean funding, the Sohail Afridi helicopter episode will fade as a political talking point. If it cannot, the IHC’s warning that public office holders may be treated as having violated the Constitution will move from paper to practice.