Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi landed in Karachi on Thursday for a brief visit, just days after concluding his mobilisation drive in the city.
CM Afridi boarded a flight from Islamabad to Karachi earlier in the day, according to his focal person for digital media Yar Muhammad Khan Niazi.
Late in the afternoon, the PTI said on X that the KP CM had arrived in Karachi to offer condolences to the family of Bilal Mehsud, a party worker who the PTI said died in a “tragic accident that took place during the rally in Karachi”.
It said CM Afridi would directly head to Mehsud’s family residence in Sohrab Goth from the Karachi airport, where he would meet the worker’s relatives and convey his sympathies.
The PTI said party leaders and workers accorded a warm welcome to the KP chief minister, and raised slogans in favour of ex-premier Imran Khan.
Shortly after 11am, the chief minister’s X account said he had departed for Karachi on a one-day visit.
An accompanying video showed Afridi arriving at the airport in KP, flanked by party members, including his aide Shafiullah Jan.
Afridi had already visited Karachi over the weekend, where he rallied PTI’s support base to support the party’s upcoming nationwide street movement.
During the visit, the Sindh government had permitted the PTI to hold a rally at Bagh-i-Jinnah. However, the PTI, citing a delay in receiving the permit, announced a change in venue, saying it would stage the gathering at one of the gates of Mazar-i-Quaid.
The confusion led to unrest and police shelling of supporters who gathered at Bagh-i-Jinnah.
Afridi, addressing Karachi crowds, had lauded the Sindh public’s warm welcome of him, but lashed out against the provincial government’s treatment of its “guests”, alleging that they had impeded his travelling party on the road from Hyderabad to Karachi.
