By Irum Saleem
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Monday alleged that he was “abducted” by authorities in Lahore and later “thrown” by the roadside, triggering a fresh confrontation between the PTI-led provincial government and the Punjab administration.
Mr Afridi claimed that he and some party workers were forcibly taken away in a police vehicle and that he was later left without security after “pressure from somewhere” was exerted on the authorities.
پنجاب پر قابض تھیف منسٹر نے پستی کی تمام حدود کراس کر لی ہیں۔ ایک دوسرے صوبے کے موجودہ وزیر اعلیٰ کو اغوا کرنا وفاق پر حملہ اور اور بدترین گراوٹ ہے! ایک طرف یہ دعویٰ کہ ہندوستان سے نہیں بلکہ اپنے ہی ملک کے لوگوں سے ڈر لگتا ہے، اور دوسری طرف یہ سستی اور گھٹیا حرکت—کیا اب اس پر بھی ‘خود دفاعی’ کا ڈرامہ رچایا جائے گا؟ #ستمبر27_ہر_چوک_ڈی_چوک
— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 14, 2026
“We were abducted, and then, when they received pressure from somewhere, they threw me by the roadside without security and left,” the chief minister alleged.
He described the incident as part of a “conspiracy to abduct the chief minister of a province” and warned that such developments could further deepen political divisions in the country.
“They want to divide the country,” he said, referring to what he described as attempts to target the elected leadership of the province.
The allegations, however, were strongly rejected by Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari, who said the chief minister had boarded the police vehicle of his own accord.
The minister also shared a video purportedly showing the incident. In the footage, Mr Afridi can be seen walking towards a police vehicle and getting into it voluntarily. He subsequently appears reluctant to leave the vehicle despite being asked to do so.
An individual can be heard telling the chief minister: “Please leave the vehicle.”
What happened inside the van?
A senior KP government official accompanying the chief minister gave a different account of the episode.
Speaking to Dawn, the official said Mr Afridi had boarded the police van after some PTI workers were detained, with the intention of securing their release.
According to him, some of the detained workers were subsequently released, but several others remained inside the vehicle.
The chief minister, therefore, refused to disembark, the official claimed.
The police then drove the van a reasonable distance away from the original location before removing Mr Afridi from the vehicle and leaving him by the roadside, he alleged.
The competing accounts have turned what began as a confrontation involving PTI workers into a political controversy over the treatment of a sitting provincial chief minister.
Punjab govt’s version
Speaking to Dunya News, Ms Bokhari rejected the KP government’s account and said there had been no abduction.
She said the chief minister had voluntarily entered the police vehicle while PTI supporters surrounded it.
According to the minister, the police driver initially believed that the vehicle was being attacked as a crowd of PTI supporters gathered around it.
“There were cameras shooting them, and there was a video from inside the dala,” she said.
“The driver thought the vehicle was being attacked, so he drove away, but stopped a short while later and said people got off and sat on the footpath,” Ms Bokhari added.
The Punjab government’s account, therefore, is that the vehicle’s movement was prompted by security concerns rather than any attempt to abduct the KP chief minister.
The episode comes amid heightened tensions between the PTI and the Punjab administration, with the presence of the KP chief minister in Lahore adding a new dimension to the confrontation.
The sharply conflicting accounts — one alleging the abduction of a sitting chief minister and the other portraying him as a politician who voluntarily entered a police van and refused to leave — are likely to fuel another round of political recriminations between the two provinces.
