PTI long march

On Friday night after a PTI political committee meeting, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi told media the party had unanimously postponed its Long March. It will leave Peshawar on October 4, not September 27. The march presses for release of Imran Khan, 73, jailed since 2023 after a 2022 no-confidence vote. PTI's last large protest two years ago ended in deadly clashes with security forces. Authorities blocked major highways with shipping containers, placed metal spike rods at Attock Bridge and Islamabad entry corridors, and deployed tens of thousands of security forces. They detained three of Khan's sisters and hundreds of party activists. Afridi rejected security warnings, citing his Friday prayers at a public mosque without concern, and said the spikes would become the final nail in the coffin of the ruling establishment. CONTESTED: Zulfi Bukhari told Reuters, "We can now do it whenever we deem fit. The question is to the government, as to how long they're willing to keep the country closed off?" Federal minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said in Islamabad the march is expected to be called off completely, not merely postponed; that PM Shehbaz Sharif has offered talks; and that PTI is preventing Mahmood Khan Achakzai from meeting the PM. Whether it runs October 4, earlier, or not at all is unresolved.