Muhammad Haseenullah
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has turned counter-terrorism into a stage performance; loud in slogans, hollow in substance, and lethal in consequence. Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s decision to send back bulletproof vehicles provided by the federation was not just symbolic defiance; it was a deliberate act of irresponsibility.
When the province stands at the frontline of Pakistan’s war on terror, the chief minister chose to play politics with the safety of his own police. He returned federally supplied armoured vehicles within days of assuming office, not after review, not after consultation, but purely for optics. It was a gesture meant to impress his party’s leadership in Bani Gala, not to protect the officers in Bannu, Hangu, or Dera Ismail Khan.
Politics Over Protection
The result was tragically predictable. The blast in Hangu that claimed the lives of SP (Operations) Asad Zubair Khan and his two brave colleagues exposed the real cost of Afridi’s populism. Their blood stains a government more interested in confrontation with Islamabad than in coordination against terrorists.
Every PTI government in KP has thrived on victimhood, blaming the centre for every crisis while squandering the very resources sent to address them. Under Imran Khan’s party, KP has received hundreds of billions from the federal government for counter-terrorism, six hundred billion officially acknowledged, and some estimates put it at over seven hundred. Yet, what does the province have to show for it?
Police stations without vehicles. Checkposts without armour. A Counter-Terrorism Department gasping for manpower and technology. And a chief minister too busy scoring political points to care.
The IG’s Confession — a Damning Verdict
The Inspector General’s briefing before the KP Assembly’s Security Committee stripped away every layer of PTI’s propaganda. His admission that the police cannot contain terrorism without military assistance was not humility — it was desperation. He revealed that of the 130,000 police personnel in the province, nearly a third guard politicians and VIPs, while only about 80,000 are left to fight militants across some of the world’s toughest terrain.
That is not a security strategy; it is a scandal. And when the IG admits that his entire force receives a budget smaller than what is spent on a single ring road, the finger points straight to the political leadership that has misruled the province for over a decade.
Billions Vanished, Accountability Missing
The federal government has every right to ask where the money went. Where are the vehicles, the surveillance systems, the training facilities that should have been built? PTI governments have mastered the art of slogans — “Naya Pakistan,” “Tabdeeli” — but failed to deliver the one thing the people of KP needed most: security.
Sohail Afridi’s act of returning protective vehicles to the centre was not courage; it was contempt — for his police, for the federation, and for the people who voted him in. His refusal to account for how counter-terrorism funds were spent is not oversight; it is complicity.
The Committee of Excuses
The recent meeting of the provincial Security Committee revealed a government that hides behind process instead of performance. Members proposed new committees, new mechanisms, new discussions — everything except decisive action. This obsession with paperwork has replaced the will to fight.
As terrorists regroup in KP’s border districts, the PTI government continues to behave as if rhetoric is resistance. But every new attack, every funeral of a fallen officer, every grieving family tells the truth that Afridi’s ministers will not: governance by arrogance is killing those who still stand between Pakistan and chaos.
Afridi’s Populism, KP’s Pain
Sohail Afridi’s politics is not leadership; it is theatre. He inherited a province in crisis and responded with stunts. His defiance of the federal government may earn him applause within PTI’s echo chambers, but on the ground, it is leaving police officers without armour, vehicles, or hope.
The chief minister’s recklessness has already cost lives. If he continues down this path, it will cost the province its stability. PTI’s model of governance; propaganda over policy, ego over empathy, has brought KP to the edge of collapse.
Until Afridi can answer where the billions in counter-terrorism funding have gone, and why his own IG admits to helplessness, he cannot claim to lead a province at war. Because in KP today, the politics is bulletproof; but the police, tragically, are not.
