CHARSADDA: Awami National Party central president Senator Aimal Wali Khan has flayed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mohammad Sohail Afridi for skipping a very important meeting in Islamabad to formulate a strategy on Afghan refugees and reportedly meeting the Peshawar corps commander ‘behind closed doors’.

“Those who refused to attend important meeting in Islamabad on the pretext of not getting permission from Imran Khan are now holding meetings behind closed rooms,” he said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.

Aimal said those who used to claim that “decisions should not be made in closed rooms” have now found themselves in those closed rooms. He said such a one-on-one meeting with corps commander could only be called on terrorism, wheat crisis or flood disasters.

Aimal sarcastically said: “Maybe in yesterday’s meeting, we must have realised our true status.” The ANP provincial president described the current provincial government as frivolous and indifferent to public problems.

ULEMA CONVENTION: Speaking at an ulema convention in Shabqadar here on Tuesday, JUI-F MNA Asad Mahmood said the province was in a severe constitutional crisis.

He said there was a chief minister in the province but there was no government in practice. “The law and order situation in the province is very bad,” he claimed, saying the cabinet wouldn’t be formed till the incumbent chief minister meets party founder Imran Khan in jail, and that the powerful circles were not allowing him to meet the former prime minister. He said JUI-F was offering its services to resolve the Pak-Afghan impasse.

He insisted JUI-F would foil attempts to ‘tarnish’ the image of seminaries. He said negative propaganda was being made against madressahs presenting them as nurseries of terrorism.

He said major political parties claimed to be ideological, but in practice they were family empires.

JUI-F provincial general secretary Senator Attaur Rehman Darwish and tehsil chief Mufti Obaidullah Anwar also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2025