Gandapur says security withdrawn, KP govt denies claim

• Would refuse if govt restores protection: Gandapur.
• KP govt denies ex-CM's claim of withdrawing security.
• Gandapur says KP govt had given him 14 personnel.
  

Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Tuesday said he would not accept the return of his government-provided security, claiming it had been withdrawn by the provincial administration.

Gandapur, who resigned from the top provincial post in October last year, said that KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi's deputy chief security officer (CSO) called his security personnel at around 11pm, informing him that the CSO had ordered them to return.

The former KP CM added that he had been provided a provincial government jammer and a double-cabin vehicle, accompanied by 14 personnel.

He described how the security personnel had approached him, and he instructed them to "just close up".

Gandapur emphasised that even if the government restores his protection, he would refuse it. "I want to inform the chief minister that there is no need to return my security. I do not require it," he said.

A spokesperson for the KP CM House, however, denied reports that Gandapur’s security had been withdrawn, saying no such decision had been made.

No instructions have been issued to relevant authorities regarding this matter, the spokesperson added.

Gandapur — a firebrand Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader — stepped down from the post of KP CM on October 8 last year, hours after party leaders announced Sohail Afridi's nomination for the post.

"In respectful compliance of the orders of my leader, and founding PTI chairman, Imran Khan, it is my honour to tender my resignation from the Office of the Chief Minister, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," he wrote in a post on X at the time.

At the time, Member National Assembly Sher Afzal Marwat claimed that one of the main reasons for Gandapur’s resignation was his inability to secure the release of PTI founder Imran Khan from jail.

Following Gandapur's resignation, Afridi was elected as the new chief executive of the province on October 13, and took the oath on October 15.