By Hira Arshad | The Changer
LAHORE — A dramatic confrontation involving Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s security team in Wazirabad has produced sharply conflicting accounts, with Afridi alleging that an armed man was sent to assassinate him while Punjab police say the detained individual was actually a police constable assigned to protect him. The dispute comes during an increasingly tense tour of Punjab by the PTI chief minister ahead of the party’s planned nationwide protest on September 27.
Afridi said in a video statement early Wednesday that his security team apprehended a man dressed in civilian clothes after the chief minister travelled from Sialkot to Wazirabad. He alleged that the man had been sent with the intention of killing him, saying his guards recovered a pistol before handing him over to the local station house officer. Afridi subsequently repeated the allegation on social media, but no independent evidence establishing an assassination plot had been made public.
Gujranwala police rejected that account and identified the man as Constable Muqadas Ali, saying he had been deployed as part of security arrangements for the chief minister. Police said the constable identified himself and presented his departmental card at the scene, and alleged that members of Afridi’s protection team nevertheless assaulted him before the Wazirabad City SHO intervened. Police described subsequent claims portraying the constable as a killer as a misrepresentation of the incident.
The conflicting versions leave a central fact unresolved: Afridi says his security team encountered an armed plain-clothes individual whom it regarded as an immediate threat, while police say that same individual was an authorised officer performing security duty. Publicly available reporting reviewed by The Changer does not establish evidence of a murder conspiracy beyond Afridi’s allegation, while the police account provides an identified constable and an official explanation for why he was armed and present at the scene.
The incident is particularly sensitive because it occurred in Wazirabad, where PTI founder and former prime minister Imran Khan was wounded in a gun attack during the party’s long march on November 3, 2022. One PTI worker was killed in that attack. The history of political violence at the same location gives Afridi’s allegation additional political resonance, even though Wednesday’s circumstances remain disputed.
The confrontation also follows days of worsening relations between Afridi and the Punjab authorities. The chief minister has been touring Punjab to mobilise supporters for PTI’s September 27 protest and has accused provincial authorities of obstructing his political activities. Earlier this week, Afridi alleged that authorities in Lahore had “abducted” him and later left him by the roadside, an allegation rejected by the Punjab government.
Afridi also alleged that electricity was disconnected at residences where he stayed in Sialkot and that generators were damaged before his convoy moved towards Wazirabad. Those claims have added to PTI’s broader accusation that Punjab authorities are attempting to disrupt the chief minister’s political mobilisation, while provincial officials maintain that security and public-order measures are being taken ahead of the planned protest.
The political dispute has already moved beyond Afridi himself. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the treatment of the chief minister during his earlier Lahore visit, describing his alleged confinement and separation from his security detail as unacceptable. Punjab authorities dispute PTI’s version of those events, illustrating how encounters that would ordinarily be handled as security matters are increasingly becoming part of the wider confrontation between the PTI-led KP government and authorities in Punjab.
That makes establishing the facts surrounding Wazirabad important beyond the immediate controversy. An allegation that an elected chief minister faced an assassination attempt is serious, but so is the police assertion that an officer assigned to protect him was wrongly identified as a killer and assaulted while performing official duties. Without an independently verified account of the encounter, presenting either side’s allegation as established fact would go beyond the evidence currently available.
The Wazirabad episode therefore adds another layer of mistrust ahead of September 27. What began as a PTI mobilisation tour is increasingly becoming a dispute over policing, political access and the security of a provincial chief minister — with competing accounts from two provincial power centres and little agreement even over the basic facts of their encounters.