PESHAWAR — An anti-terrorism court here has started proceedings to declare dysfunctional Chief Minister Sohail Afridi as a proclaimed offender in the officials attack case as the relevant police official claimed that Mr Afridi couldn’t be traced. In the order sheet, Judge Wali Mohammad Khan noted that the detective foot constable (DFC) of the East Cantonment police station returned the warrants issued against the accused, including Sohail Afridi and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf activist Mohammad Amir Khan, with overleaf reports stating that both of them couldn’t be found or traced.
“Proclamation notices under Section 87 of CrPC should be issued against accused Sohail Afridi and Amir Khan, with notice to the DFC for recording a corroborative statement,” he said. He fixed Nov 24 for submission of the DFC’s report and further proceedings. The judge had ordered the issuance of arrest warrants for the accused on Oct 28 after a supplementary charge-sheet was submitted, naming Afridi, Amir, former provincial ministers Taimoor Saleem Khan and Kamran Bangash and PTI Peshawar president Irfan Saleem as the accused in the May 2023 ransacking and torching of the officials building in Peshawar.
Subsequently, the court issued warrants against Afridi and Amir on Nov 5. The warrants issued for Mr Afridi’s arrest listed his residential address in Bara, Khyber district. However, they didn’t describe Mr Afridi as the dysfunctional chief minister.
The other three newly nominated accused appeared before the court and were granted interim pre-arrest bail. The dysfunctional chief minister has not been seen since the imposition of the governor’s rule and emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Oct 11. While his whereabouts remained unknown, first a federal minister and then some other government functionaries disclosed that he and some of his cabinet members were in preventive custody.