WAZIRABAD/LAHORE: The Punjab government has rejected Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s claim that an assassination attempt against him was foiled in Wazirabad. It says the man his security team detained was a police constable deployed on duty for his protection.
Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari said Constable Muqaddas Ali had been on duty yet was being accused of coming to attack the chief minister. She also released Safe City camera footage of Afridi’s arrival in the city.
In a video statement on Wednesday, which he said was recorded shortly before 5 am, Sohail Afridi said an armed man in plain clothes had been sent to kill him. His security team caught the man, recovered a pistol from him and handed him over to local police, he said. He shared a photograph of the alleged attacker but did not name anyone as responsible.
The KP chief minister also alleged that police had taken away their food and that electricity had been cut to the house where they were staying. He said he had faced similar hurdles in Sialkot, where power supplies were cut and generators at two residences he visited were damaged.
Gujranwala police disputed the account. They said Constable Muqaddas Ali identified himself at the scene and showed his official departmental identity card, making clear he was deployed on security duty for the KP chief minister.
Despite this, police said, the constable was physically assaulted in the presence of the SHO City Wazirabad, who intervened and rescued him with considerable effort. Police rejected claims from the chief minister’s representatives describing the constable as a “killer”, saying they misrepresented the facts.
Azma Bokhari said the SHO could be seen in the photographs while the constable was being beaten, and that the constable was carrying his police duty card. How could he be called an attacker, she asked.
She said the Safe City footage showed only a few security guards accompanying Afridi, as well as what she mockingly called PTI’s “street movement” in Wazirabad’s main market. Safe City cameras are now installed in Wazirabad as well, she said, adding that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had turned the whole of Punjab into a Safe City, so everything in the province could be seen.
In sharply worded remarks, Bokhari wondered why PTI leaders suffered “fits of madness” whenever they reached Wazirabad, and drew a mocking comparison between the party’s founder and his followers.
Wazirabad carries political weight for PTI. On November 3, 2022, former prime minister Imran Khan and several others were injured in a gun attack there during the party’s long march, and one worker was killed. In 2025, a man was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attack, while two others were acquitted.
Wednesday’s incident was not the first dispute of Afridi’s Punjab tour. On Monday night, he alleged he had been “abducted” by authorities in Lahore and left by the roadside, a claim the Punjab government denied. Bokhari shared a video in which he appeared to board a police vehicle voluntarily. The Lahore Times reported how Afridi’s Lahore street rally sparked a police standoff and a war of words.
Afridi has been touring Punjab since Monday to mobilise supporters ahead of PTI’s nationwide protests and a march towards Islamabad on September 27 demanding the release of Imran Khan. His visit comes while Section 144 is in force across Punjab until September 17, banning rallies and sit-ins amid security alerts.
The two sides’ accounts cannot both be right, and the Safe City footage and police statement are likely to shape the public debate. The dispute points to rising political tension between the federal and Punjab governments and the PTI-led KP government as the September 27 protest date approaches.
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