The federal government on Sunday ordered Pakistan Army troops into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to assist the civil administration, invoking Article 245 of the Constitution for the duration of the emergency proclaimed in the province.
An Interior Ministry notification issued on 11 October says army personnel will help safeguard citizens’ lives and property along with government installations, and will support the provincial administration in maintaining law and order. The governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Faisal Karim Kundi, will determine the number of troops and the resources required in consultation with the Military Operations Directorate at GHQ Rawalpindi. The formal notification is to be published in Part II of the Gazette of Pakistan.
Alongside the deployment, the federal government announced an 11-member advisory council for the province: Dr Syed Amir Abdullah, Tariq Mahmood Pasha, Lt Gen (retd) Nigar Johar Khan, Usman Saifullah Khan, Amir Javed, Samar Haroon Bilour, Dr Muhammad Irshad, Maulana Muhammad Tayyab Qureshi, Kifayatullah Khan, Asif Rafiq Afridi and Dr Sarfaraz Ali Shah.
The deployment follows President Asif Ali Zardari’s signing of the summary imposing an emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under Articles 232 and 234, on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The move came after a surge in terrorist incidents in the province.
PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan sharply criticised the decision, calling the emergency “an extremely alarming and grave political mistake”. Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the measure would be placed before a joint session of parliament for approval.
Featured image: Pakistani soldiers in Balakot, 2005 file photo (US Department of Defense, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).
