Sohail Afridi formally named in Radio Pakistan attack case as police file supplementary charge sheet, hearing adjourned to October 28

There is a new turn in the Radio Pakistan attack case, and it lands on a man who has had little else but bad weeks lately.

Police filed a supplementary charge sheet with the district public prosecutor in Peshawar on Tuesday, formally naming former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi as an accused in the May 2023 attack on the Radio Pakistan building. Four others were named alongside him: former provincial ministers Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Bangash, PTI Peshawar president Irfan Saleem, and Muhammad Aamir. With those five added, the list of accused in the case now runs past eighty.

How the names got there

This was not built on a fresh statement. It was built on old video. Acting on an application by the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation’s lawyer, Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, the court ordered a forensic examination of the relevant footage and facial identification through Nadra back in December 2025. The Punjab Forensic Science Agency reported that the facial features of the five matched people seen in the riot footage. Nadra, for its part, described the profile pictures as probable matches. Investigators leaned on those two reports, and the charge sheet followed.

PTI leaders have questioned whether the clips even show the May 10, 2023 attack at all. That argument will now be made in court rather than in press statements.

A trial that was already running

The main case is not new. Seventy-five accused were indicted on June 3 last year and pleaded not guilty. The FIR itself dates to May 10, 2023, lodged at the East Cantonment police station by the then SHO, Arbab Naeem Haider, under provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Act. The anti-terrorism court adjourned the hearing until October 28.

The timing is hard to miss. Afridi’s government fell on October 11 when emergency and governor’s rule were imposed in the province. He is in preventive custody, his brother went to the Peshawar High Court a day earlier seeking his recovery, and now there is a charge sheet with his name on it as well. Being named is not a conviction — that is for the court to decide — but it is one more legal front for a former chief minister whose political ground has shrunk by the day.