PTI postpones long march to Oct 4, party sources say

Earlier, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Khan Afridi speaking at a press conference at the Chief Minister’s House in Peshawar, said that the planned long march on Islamabad would go ahead despite road blockades and other measures. “Our long march will definitely take place.

This time, we will definitely come out,” Afridi said. The chief minister criticised the placement of nails on roads at the K-P boundary, saying the move raised questions about whether the province was being cut off from the rest of the country.

“No matter how many nails they put in the roads, this long march will not be stopped,” he said. Afridi also questioned what he called a growing narrative that one province faced threats from other provinces rather than India.

He said that officials and policemen from other provinces were entering K-P and fighting with the provincial administration. “A narrative has been created for the past month that one province faces a threat from the other three provinces,” he said, asking whether the people of K-P were being portrayed negatively.

He also said that K-P ministers were being taken away by people in plain clothes and that the province was being pushed in a different direction. Afridi also criticised the closure of the provincial secretariat following a security alert, questioning why government operations had been halted when the area was already under security control.

“The entire cantonment is under their control. How can there be a threat here?” he asked. He said he had personally reopened the mosque inside the secretariat after it was closed over the rumoured security threat and offered prayers there.

He also walked around the premises before urging people in K-P not to be afraid. “Till your CM is with you, no one will look at the province with an evil eye,” Afridi said. Meanwhile, the PTI political committee was holding consultations on a proposal to postpone the long march until Oct 5.

No final decision on the proposal had been announced. Afridi said further discussions would take place before the party formally announced whether the protest would be postponed. He left for Charsadda after the press conference to attend a meeting.