Akbar Jamal
You may remember that in May 2026 a girl of about twelve, named Hooram Saeed Pathan, was kidnapped from Peshawar and then recovered from the Kacha area of Sindh. The thieves of Kacha who had kidnapped her had tried to force the girl into marriage with a worthless young thief from their own gang. At that time the kidnapping case had probably gone on for nearly a month.
Her parents were deeply worried, and a heavy ransom had also been taken from them. From the reports, it looked as though the Sindh government had made no effort at all to free this child. Because of this same indifference of the government, “honor-bound armed men” who had lost hope in state help set out from Balochistan and Pakhtunkhwa in convoys of vehicles, on their own, toward Kacha to free twelve-year-old Hooram Saeed Pathan. After that, the child was recovered.
Now, on October 11, 2026, at his own press conference, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Law and Justice, Azam Nazeer Tarar, gave Western media journalists the reason for imposing governor’s rule and a state of emergency in Pakhtunkhwa, in these words: “The Pashtuns of Pakhtunkhwa marry off their little daughters by force. This is an extremely dangerous and serious problem, and the federal government has felt the need for emergency action against it. For this reason we are imposing governor’s rule and a state of emergency in Pakhtunkhwa.”
But on the other hand, this same Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar tells the people of Pakistan that there is terrorism in Pakhtunkhwa, and that is why governor’s rule and a state of emergency are being imposed there. Why do the rulers of Punjab, who have imposed themselves on Pakistan, behave in this two-faced way toward their own people?
To the West and the disbelievers they say “governor’s rule and a state of emergency have been imposed to prevent forced marriages of underage girls,” but to the people of Pakistan they give terrorism as the reason.
The question is, who after all is this West, the home of the disbelievers, to whom you, speaking on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, give explanations, by your own account, only about the forced marriages of underage girls in one particular province?
Is the West your guide, the one who gives you authority? Is the West your god? Does the West, instead of Islam, give you your daily bread, your daughters, and the authority and laws over your daughters’ marriages? If you, sitting in Punjab, give the West these explanations about Pakhtunkhwa, then why have you not given it explanations about the kidnapping of twelve-year-old Hooram Saeed Pathan from Peshawar through Punjab to Sindh, the forced marriage there of that innocent child to a worthless young thief from Kacha, and the silence of the Sindh and Punjab governments over all of this?
Has Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, who defames the people of Pakhtunkhwa with his propaganda about forced marriages of underage girls, also told Western journalists that:
“According to the official report of the Punjab Police, in the first six months of 2026, 4,446 cases of rape and 940 cases of gang rape against women were registered across Punjab, with police officers themselves also involved in violating the honor of the daughters of their own Punjab.”
A similar incident took place at the Ghazi Abad police station in Lahore. It happened on Sunday, August 2, in Pakistan’s month of independence. The criminal who had raped an innocent girl with an intellectual disability and locked her up in the storeroom of the Ghazi Abad police station was named Imran and served as an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) in the investigation branch. According to the report, this criminal police officer had taken the girl to a room on the upper floor of the police station, where this “proud son” of the Punjab Police committed this savage act against a daughter of his own Punjab.
Likewise, a case of rape by police also took place in the Jacobabad area of Sindh. It happened around January 18 and 19, 2026, at the RD-52 police station in Thul tehsil.
In connection with the investigation of a murder, the police station had illegally detained a seventeen-year-old girl named Asia Khoso, whose age was below the eighteen years fixed for marriage under Pakistani law, together with her sister and grandmother. Six policemen, including the station’s ASI, had raped seventeen-year-old Asia Khoso, and the medical examinations had also confirmed the rape.
Has Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar of Punjab also told Western journalists that:
“According to the above-mentioned Punjab Police reports, in the first six months of 2026, 5,814 cases of kidnapping of women and 13,208 cases of kidnapping for the purpose of rape or forced marriage were registered in Punjab.”
Likewise, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, who gives the West these explanations, has also told English-language journalists, in English, that:
“According to the reports of human rights organizations and the non-governmental organization Sahil on underage girls and forced marriages in Punjab, the largest share of such cases registered across the country, that is, about 74 to 78 percent, occurs in Punjab.”
If the forced marriages of underage girls are the reason for imposing a state of emergency and governor’s rule, then the question is, did the Pakhtunkhwa government carry out these marriages officially? If that is the reason, then 78 percent of the forced marriage cases of underage girls happen in Punjab, so by that reckoning a state of emergency should be imposed first of all in Punjab. Yes, as the people say, “governor’s rule” is there anyway!
All this shows that the real aim of the Punjab and federal governments is to seize control of Pakhtunkhwa and loot its mines, so that only Punjab, and within Punjab only the military men, benefit, while the politicians, for a privilege as trivial as a ten-rupee chocolate, are “pampered and kept as the army’s honorable subordinates.” Armed opposition and girls’ marriages are only pretexts.
For this reason, if anyone thinks that imposing governor’s rule and a state of emergency in Pakhtunkhwa will end armed opposition in Pakistan, that is never the case. The reason is that under Pakistan’s Constitution governor’s rule can last six months at most, and forming a new government of the people in the province within six months is the responsibility of the federal government. It is also clear to everyone that Pakistan’s real ruler is the army.
Now that the army has got hold of a pretext for taking control of Pakhtunkhwa, who can believe that the army, like its mentor Zia ul-Haq, will not seize power in a midnight coup, will not cling to power for ten years on a false promise of holding elections in ninety days, and will surely install a government of the people in Pakhtunkhwa after six months? Has the one who believes this been sent some “document and certificate on WhatsApp” saying that the army will turn against its own interests and let Pakhtunkhwa slip from its hands?
And even if a political government is formed in six months or somewhat longer, will it really be a government of the people? And will that so-called government of the people itself know that it is one chosen by the people’s votes? Behind all of this will be the Punjab government and the army…
Regarding the state of emergency and governor’s rule, it should be kept in mind that the gun culture in Pakistan is so deeply rooted that calling it simply “terrorism” is very simplistic. The truth is that it should be called “military terrorism.” For this reason, to keep the army permanently present in Pakhtunkhwa, that same kind of armed violence will now increase, the kind in which the army itself carries out bombings and similar incidents, or has them carried out by others, and creates pretexts for its presence.
On this, there are earlier and more recent statements on record, backed by solid evidence, from Major Adil Raja, from General Shahid Aziz, who was made to disappear and then mysteriously killed by the army, and from the present Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif.
