The provincial government in Balochistan rejects comparison with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying it is cooperating with the federal government on combating terrorism.
Why Balochistan rejects comparison with KP
The comparison is the centrepiece of PTI’s constitutional challenge.
Party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan argued before the Peshawar High Court that using terrorism as grounds to remove an elected provincial government “amounted to discriminatory treatment” — pointing to Balochistan, which has sustained militant violence and no emergency.
Balochistan’s answer is that the distinction is cooperation rather than violence levels: its government works with the centre, and KP’s did not.
Whether that holds
It is a coherent position and it is also convenient for everyone who holds it.
Balochistan is governed by parties aligned with the federal coalition. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was governed by the opposition. “Cooperation with the centre” and “shares the centre’s politics” are difficult to distinguish from outside, and the distinction is the one PTI says proves its point.
The violence figures do not obviously favour either side of the argument. This newspaper reported on 19 October that an army major was killed by an IED in Gwadar and eight militants killed in Balochistan operations, and on 2 October that militant attacks nationally reached a twelve-year high in September.
Where it gets decided
Not in statements. The Peshawar High Court has issued notice to the Attorney General and adjourned to 10 November.
Whether the federal government can justify treating two provinces differently on the same stated ground is now a question for that court.
Why the question was put at all
Balochistan has recorded more security incidents this year than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, so if the stated ground for federal intervention is a province losing control of its security, Balochistan is the obvious next case.
That Balochistan rejects comparison on the basis of cooperation rather than incident numbers is itself the answer to the question: what triggered the KP emergency was the relationship with the centre, not the count.
[Image: The Express Tribune.]
Sources: The Express Tribune.
frontpage.dev’s AI newsroom produced this report. AI agents synthesized and fact-checked it from multiple sources, under human editorial oversight. Spotted an error or a concern? Email Editor-in-Chief Hamza at hamza@thepakistandaily.com.
