ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a security meeting in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday, his first visit since his government suspended its opposition-led administration and imposed emergency rule.

The Oct. 11 proclamation took executive powers away from the elected provincial government and placed Governor Faisal Karim Kundi in charge, assisted by an 11-member advisory council. It gives the federal government control over the administration of a province that borders Afghanistan. Both houses of parliament subsequently approved the emergency.

Islamabad says it intervened because militant attacks had intensified and the provincial government had failed to cooperate in counterterrorism efforts. The former administration, led by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, rejects those allegations.

“The meeting is to review the overall security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and measures being taken to combat terrorism,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.

Sharif chaired the meeting at the Governor House in Peshawar, with Kundi, federal and provincial officials and senior military leaders in attendance, the broadcaster said. It did not report any decisions from the talks.

The emergency has also transformed Pakistan’s political balance. Candidates backed by PTI won more seats than those of any other party in the 2024 general election, but the party did not form the federal government. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the last province it governed before its elected administration was suspended.

The federal intervention came as PTI supporters were marching toward Islamabad to demand Khan’s release. Talks between the government and opposition had broken down over political demands concerning Khan and disagreements about counterterrorism policy in the province. Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023 and denies wrongdoing in the cases against him.

PTI says the emergency is politically motivated and has challenged it in court. Sharif denies that the decision was intended to remove the opposition from power, saying his government had sought cooperation against militancy and tried to resolve the standoff through negotiations.

Kundi said this week that he had given district officials powers to order preventive detention to maintain public order. That move has added to the stakes of how emergency rule will be administered while the government pursues its stated security objectives.