Claim: JUI-F’s member Maulana Asad Mehmood has been nominated for the post of Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and current Governor Faisal Kundi has been dismissed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Fact: The claim is false. Faisal Kundi is still the Governor of KP, and JUI-F’s media cell has also refuted the claim.
On 21 October 2024, a fan account of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) lawyer Naeem Bukhari posted a tweet on X (archived) which read:
مولانا اسد محمود گورنر خیبر پختونخوا نامزد
وزیراعظم شہباز شریف نے گورنر خیبر پختونخوا فیصل کنڈی کو عہدے سے ہٹا دیا
گورنر کا عہدہ ملنا مولانا کا حکومت سے ڈیل کا پہلا نتیجہ ہیں
[Translation; Maulana Asad Mehmood Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nominated
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif removed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Kundi from office. Getting the post of governor is the first result of Maulana’s deal with the government.]
The post included a picture of Maulana Asad Mehmood.
The claim has surfaced in context of the recent passage of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. Maulana Asad Mehmood is the son of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Rehman’s party helped in passing the amendment after certain changes were made to it, while they were still aligning with PTI who opposed it during the National Assembly session.
26th Constitutional Amendment
The newly approved 26th Constitutional Amendment has made significant changes to the powers of the judiciary, including the removal of the Supreme Court’s suo motu powers, empowering the prime minister to appoint the next Chief Justice of Pakistan from among the three most senior SC judges, and setting a fixed term of three years for the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP).
The amendment came just days before the retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa. Under the previous law, Isa would have been replaced by the next most senior judge, Mansoor Ali Shah, who has consistently issued verdicts deemed favourable to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, reported Al-Jazeera.
PTI has announced launching a decisive movement against the amendment across the country “without any fear of consequences”. Moreover, lawyers and activists, along with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, United Nations, and International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) have shared concerns about the new amendment, seeing this as a “clear blow to the independence of the judiciary”.
Fact or Fiction?
To investigate, Soch Fact Check did a keyword search on Google but could not find any results about the dismissal of Faisal Kundi from his post. No mainstream media outlet covered any such news nor did we find any information on the official website of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Furthermore, the official spokesperson of JUI-F Aslam Ghauri refuted the claim in a X post on 21 October 2024. Translated from Urdu into English, the post said, “The baseless news is an excuse to sabotage the historic and successful efforts of JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman regarding the 26th constitutional amendment”.
He described the claim as false news, adding that it was “contrary to journalistic values” and based on “fabrication and lies.”
We also scoured the official X (formerly Twitter) account of KP’s Governor Faisal Kundi for any such news, only to find that he is still posting about his work and events as of Monday, 28 October 2024.
Virality
The false post on X received 255.8k views, 18,000 likes and 7,300 reposts. The archived versions can be seen here and here.
It was also shared by some local pages here and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: Maulana Asad Mehmood has not been nominated for the post of Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Faisal Kundi is still serving as the governor and claims of his dismissal are false.
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